


The Space Between Us

by NecromanticNoir



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Azkaban, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 06:55:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NecromanticNoir/pseuds/NecromanticNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Snape saves Harry from the frozen pool, the locket reveals Snape’s deepest desires - and unlocks Harry’s curiosity. Now the Master of Death, Harry can attempt to bring Snape back from the dead. But what repercussions might this have for them both?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between Us

  
**Title:** The Space Between Us  
 **Author:** [](http://necromanticnoir.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**necromanticnoir**](http://necromanticnoir.dreamwidth.org/)  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Word count:** 28,700  
 **Content/Warning(s):** (Chan, 17) (highlight for spoilers) * Harry does not let Severus die in the Shack, forced bonding Chan: Harry is 17. A bit of angst, voyeurism, mention of blood when Severus is attacked in the Shack.*  
 **Cliché:** (highlight for spoilers) * Harry does not let Severus die in the Shack, forced bonding.*  
 **Summary:** When Snape saves Harry from the frozen pool, the locket reveals Snape’s deepest desires - and unlocks Harry’s curiosity. Now the Master of Death, Harry can attempt to bring Snape back from the dead. But what repercussions might this have for them both?  
 **A/N:** Thank you, as ever, to H. What would I do without you my dear? This story is in three parts, two from Harry's POV, one from Snape's. The song lyrics at the start are completed at the story’s close, and credited as ‘On an Ordinary Day’ by Marcella and the Forget-Me-Knots. The story’s title comes from the Craig Armstrong album ‘The Space Between Us’, from which I heard the song ‘Let’s Go Out Tonight’. Both these songs are my little soundtrack to this story. I hope you enjoy it.

 

  
** The Space Between Us **   


 

 

‘On an ordinary day,  
We woke up, and as I lay in our bed,  
You poured my bath,  
‘Cause that’s what you do.  
I remember that you smiled,  
As still half asleep,  
I rested my head on your shoulder,  
And there I stayed,  
‘Cause that’s what I do.  
Then we dressed up to the nines,  
And drove down the road,  
To sign your life to me,  
And mine to you for ever more,  
In an ordinary way…’

PART I

The silver doe slipped through the trees.

Harry followed behind, brimming with wonder and anxiety.

He had just begun to strip by the still water’s edge, when:

“Stop, wait!”

It was Ron, pelting up behind him.

“You can’t go in there!” Ron wheezed.

“How did you find me?” Harry growled, emotion exploding through him at the sight of his best friend. “Did you put that in there?”

He pointed to a crack in the shimmering ice pool. The Sword of Gryffindor glittered strangely at the bottom.

“No sodding way,” Ron growled. “I saw who did, though.”

“Who?” Harry asked, blinking about in the darkness.

“Snape,” said Ron, darkly, and Harry’s chest went cold. “He’s here, watching us somewhere. The sword is cursed, bet anything you like. It’s a trap.”

“Snape,” Harry hissed, a dark anger shrouding him. “But we need that sword!”

“What if it isn’t even really there,” Ron continued. “You don’t want to go jumping into Snape’s poisoned water chasing moonbeams!”

Harry sighed.

“Bet you’re right. Why would a strange Patronus – wait, you’re telling me that was Snape’s? He can make one?”

“Even if he can, I seriously doubt it would lead us to the actual sword!” Ron scowled.

“I guess… it is all too unlikely,” Harry sagged. “Crap.”

As they turned to walk away, shoulders slumped, the silvery doe trotted out of the night towards them again. She skipped up to Harry on spindly legs, eyes wide and luminous.

The doe then opened her delicate, ethereal mouth, and said:

“Just fucking take the thing, Potter!”

Harry stepped back. Snape’s voice from the beautiful doe’s mouth seemed obscene.

“Where are you?” he yelled, at the trees. “Stop hiding from us!”

The next thing he knew, Severus Snape stood in front of him, looking just as unpleasant as ever.

* * * * *

The crack of Apparition startled Ron so much that he stumbled and fell over backwards.

Snape sneered down his hooked nose at Harry as his doe curled away in wisps into the night air.

“You!” Harry yelled.

Snape’s eyes grew wide as Harry, consumed suddenly with burning frenzy, flew across the frozen pond like a mad thing.

Snape raised his wand almost lazily and, with a single flick, Harry crumpled into a whimpering heap.

“No,” Snape sneered, “that will not do, Potter. Fight me like a man – this is too easy. If I were the Dark Lord, you would be dead by now.”

He turned, wand in his hand, as Ron scrambled up muttering, “Incarcero -”

“I think not,” Snape snapped – Ron’s wand flew clean out of his fingers and into Snape’s bony hand. “Beat it, Weasley.”

“And leave you alone with Harry? Nothing doing!” Ron snarled.

Snape flicked his wand again – Ron went flying. Harry heard his friend’s yell as he sailed through the air and landed, dazed, yards off.

Eyes flashing with triumph as he turned back to Harry, Snape’s lips thinned.

“Been having a nice little jaunt about the countryside, have we?” he spat. “Having fun? If Dumbledore had not told me you had some mysterious task to do, I should have believed you to be taking a holiday!” he screeched.

Harry, who could barely even move his fingers (whatever Snape had cursed him with was filling his mouth with a nasty coppery taste) keened softly from the floor as Snape stood over him.

“You have been at this ‘task’ a long time now, Potter,” Snape continued derisively, crouching to bring his greasy face closer to Harry’s. “Dumbledore evidently thought too highly of your intelligence. There are many people out there risking life and limb for you, myself included, and all you can do is enjoy your little camping trip – aaah!”

The curse had worn off.

Finding himself suddenly able to move, Harry had sprung up from the floor – weak yet spurred on by blinding hatred – and swung his fist crudely at Snape.

He connected, to his surprise, with the side of Snape’s jaw. Snape, caught off balance, collapsed onto his back on the ice; colliding with a further sharp ‘crack’ before dropping his wand and groaning.

Harry, kneeling on all fours and panting, half delighted and half appalled by what he had just done, spat out a mouthful of blood.

“You deserved that,” he panted, and coughed, spraying more blood onto the ice.

“You little shit,” Snape groaned. Flat on his back, he brought one bony hand up to press the palm against his face.

“That was for Dumbledore,” Harry growled, crawling over to collect Snape and Ron’s wands from where they had fallen. He clambered up, face grim.

“It’s nowhere near enough, but it’s a start.”

Snape sat up, hand still cradling his cheek, and was faced with his own wand, pointed square between his eyes.

“Give that back, Potter. Playtime’s over,” he snarled, and reached for it.

Harry twitched it away.

“You’re worse than your master, Snape. At least he has the courtesy to be openly evil. You’re just a coward. And a murderer. I hate you more than I ever hated Riddle – Dumbledore trusted you; we all trusted you. But then you killed him! It makes me sick just looking at you,” Harry said, trying to hold Snape’s wand steady as his body trembled with rage.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Snape sneered. He snatched at his wand again, but closed his fingers around empty air instead.

“I was there, Snape. I saw you do it,” Harry cried.

“And, therefore, you think you understand the situation perfectly,” Snape replied disdainfully.

“Of course I understand!” Harry spat. “And now… and now, you’re my prisoner.”

Snape rolled his eyes and stood.

“Forgive me for not quaking with fear, Potter.”

“Shut up!” Harry screamed. “Have the decency to bloody look afraid, give me some fucking respect!”

“You won’t hurt me,” Snape replied, dismissively. “But I will need my wand back, as I must fix this before I return to Hogwarts,” he patted his bruised cheek. “I have already stayed too long. There are one or two things we must discuss, now -”

“I DON’T WANT TO LISTEN TO ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY!” yelled Harry. It was so frustrating – the more and more angry he got, the more Snape just smirked at him coolly, treated him like a whining child…

In the next moment, he was striding over towards Snape, who was just standing there, watching him superiorly – with his arms folded, of all the sons of –

“Ron!” Harry called, eyes never leaving Snape’s. “Ron, are you ok?”

There was a groan. Ron trudged toward him out of the gloom.

“Bloody bastard,” he muttered, rubbing his leg angrily.

“Ron, get Hermione – her wand’s down there. Go through the trees over there, and keep going straight. We’re by a fallen tree and a patch of snapdragons. We’re going to interrogate Snape. He’s our hostage.”

“Where’s your own wand?” Ron asked, glancing at Snape anxiously.

“Broken,” Harry reassured him.

Ron snatched his wand up and trudged angrily out of the clearing.

“Broken?” Snape hissed. “You’ve been running around the countryside without a wand?”

“Naturally, not news I want spread around,” Harry snarled back. “You had information for me?”

“That is the Sword of Gryffindor,” Snape said, pointing to the pool.

“What’s the catch?” Harry demanded.

“No tricks,” Snape sneered.

“Why give it to me?”

Snape sighed.

“If only you had mastered the ability to close your mind against the Dark Lord, I might be able to tell you. As it is, I shall have to Obliviate you before I leave.”

“Over my dead body,” Harry spat. “You do it,” he added, jerking the wand towards the pool.

“I… What?” Snape sneered, eyes widening.

“You get it out of the pool,” Harry repeated. “I’ll watch.”

“No,” Snape said dangerously, arms folded.

“If you won’t go in, why should I?” Harry crowed.

“The sword needs to be won in conditions of valour,” Snape snapped, looking frustrated.

“Too cowardly for the cold water?” Harry jeered back.

“Return my wand and I shall summon it,” Snape offered darkly. He held out a hand, white palm up.

“Ha! You think I’m really stupid. Accio Sword!” Harry called.

The water rippled, but the sword remained still.

“You can’t go in wearing your robes, Snape. Undress.”

There was a shocked silence as both men realised what Harry had just said.

“Never,” Snape sneered at him.

Harry’s wrist jerked as a surge of hatred shot out of his chest – a spell erupted from Snape’s wand and slashed a small cut on one of Snape’s high cheekbones. Hand against his face, Snape stared at Harry in horror, eyes glittering strangely. Harry bit back his gasp – and his apology. This was Snape. The man deserved nothing.

“I have never harmed you,” Snape hissed.

“Your wand responds to my anger,” Harry said coldly, which was as close as he could come to saying ‘it was an accident!’ Snape, however, seemed to take it as a threat.

Eyes burning with hatred and humiliation, Snape pushed his robe over his shoulders and let it fall. He never took his eyes from Harry’s, and the unconscious sexuality of the gesture left Harry unexpectedly breathless. The copious black material settled around Snape’s ankles, leaving him in a black frock coat, trousers, and boots.

“Boots too,” Harry said, and he suddenly had a flash of Snape’s awful memory – of Harry’s father humiliating Snape. Harry hesitated, watching Snape unlacing his boots. Snape’s socks were faded, white with patches of grey. Snape removed them, peeling them away from white skin.

“A-and the coat,” Harry said, as Snape straightened up.

Snape’s glare was almost painful as his fingers flicked down the front of his coat, releasing the buttons. As he let the coat fall onto the dead forest floor, a spike of guilty desire shot to Harry’s groin and he reeled, horrified.

Harry had intended to stop there, but Snape also wore a waistcoat.

“Waistcoat too,” he blurted.

Snape removed it. Then he paused, hands at the buttons of his white shirt, upper lip curling in anger.

Harry, chest heaving, wand trembling in his hand, shook his head. He suddenly wanted to see Snape’s bare chest more than he had ever wanted anything in his entire life –

“No more. I’m not t-trying to humiliate you. In – in the water,” he croaked out.

Snape’s eyes narrowed. He walked slowly to the edge of the crack in the ice, eyes still on Harry, circling him like a predator. Then he knelt, and looked into the murky depths.

“In,” Harry commanded, but his voice cracked. Snape’s head snapped up and he scowled at Harry.

“You’ll pay for this,” he hissed.

“In!” Harry said, more forcefully, jerking the wand again. Snape flinched, as though expecting another assault. He folded his legs out from under himself and dipped one bare foot into the water.

Harry watched Snape’s face harden. He opened his mouth to rile Snape by calling him a coward, but Snape was lowering himself into the pool, face pinched and tight. He did not pause to look at Harry, but dipped his head beneath the water.

And did not resurface.

* * * * *

Harry stood on the bank, staring at Snape’s discarded clothes, wand still pointed (and trembling) at the hole in the ice.

The only sound in the forest was Harry’s ragged breathing. Harry gripped the wand still tighter.

Still Snape did not appear.

Anxiously, Harry shuffled closer to the edge of the pool. Taking tentative steps across the ice, he knelt at the water’s edge.

“Snape?” he whispered. “Where are you?”

He bent and peered into the shadowy pool, squinting; face inches from the water…

A hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat.

Harry screamed as he fell face first into the freezing pond.

A moment later his mouth was full of iced water and he choked, even as he was kicked in the stomach by Snape, who snatched away his glasses, the Sword of Gryffindor clutched in his other hand.

Harry flailed around in the painfully cold water, blind, as Snape clawed over him and scrambled out of the pool.

Harry, lungs frozen by the cold, skin screaming in protest, began to blunder after him – but something was happening.

Upon finding itself too close to the sword, the Horcrux around Harry’s neck began to tighten.

Breathless and half blind, Harry thrashed in panic. Hands at his throat, he tried to tear the Horcrux off.

As the world began to go black and Harry’s crushed windpipe felt as though it were collapsing inwards, suffocating him – he was surely going to die – a hand caught him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him out of the water.

Snape, still holding the sword, dragged him up the bank, kicking and thrashing.

“What the hell,” Snape yelled, but then he saw the locket.

Harry, about to pass out, clawed at his throat. Snape snatched up his wand and cut the chain.

Harry cried out, gasping for air.

Snape held the Horcrux up before his nose, studying it. His eyes narrowed.

“Destroy it,” Harry choked out. “It’s a -”

“I know,” Snape said, darkly, “what this is. This is what he would not tell me. You are hunting these, I take it?” he snapped. Harry could only nod, dumbly. “I had suspected this. Since Dumbledore told me of – well,” Snape broke off, glowering at Harry. “How many are there?”

“Three so far,” Harry said, breathlessly, “including this one.”

“Fear for the life of the snake…” Snape muttered. Aloud he said, “You know of more?”

“No,” Harry said. “I… There are more. It’s just taken us months to get this one. We couldn’t destroy it because we needed the sword. D-do it now.”

“It shouldn’t be me,” Snape snapped. “If the Dark Lord finds out –”

“Go on,” Harry entreated. “You got the sword. You got me out of the pool.”

“I also put both you and the sword into the pool!” Snape sneered, but he placed the locket on the ground, gripping the sword tightly.

“Stab it,” Harry said, sitting up and crawling over to the locket.

He bent his lips to it and whispered in Parseltongue. The locket’s golden doors clicked open and an eye appeared within, even as a deathly voice emerged from the Horcrux…

“Severus Snape! I have seen your heart, and it is mine! I have seen your dreams, and I have seen your fears!”

“Kill it!” Harry yelled in confusion, but Snape had frozen.

“He lies there before you, if only he knew! If only he knew that the innocent attraction you once held for his mother has mutated, into a longing for him! How your lust would repulse him! You will never have his heart – nor his body beneath your hands!”

Harry blinked. He looked up at Snape in shock, as if Snape’s face would explain the locket’s strange words.

Snape, wet clothes plastered to his body, wet hair flat and lank against his head, was looking down at him in horror. His mouth was slack, and lines of anguish were etched into his thin face.

“Look at him now, how your perverse sexual desires terrify him! Even if you survive, he will scorn you, as he has always done! He will expose your darkest secret – think of the faces of all those you hoped will one day respect you, when they learn how you have coveted Harry Potter’s young flesh!”

The eye turned red as it looked on Snape, who began to tremble.

“Stab it!” Harry shouted. “Stab it quick!”

“I know you have you dreamed of him under you, of taking him, enjoying his tender body! They will all know – you will go to Azkaban and he will laugh at you, they will all revile you together -”

“Snape!” Harry screamed. “Do it now!”

The sword plunged – Harry screamed again as he dived out of the way. The blade pierced the glass of the locket and there was a long, monstrous howl as it shattered.

Snape was left, standing over the locket, clutching the sword and panting. His damp hair hung in strings about his face.

He dropped the sword with a clang. Then slumped to his knees, head in his hands.

There was no sound but the dripping of water from Snape’s wet clothes onto the dank ground.

Harry sat up, watchful.

He wanted to move closer to Snape; to comfort him. But the locket’s words had left Harry with a bitter taste in his mouth. Surely Snape didn’t really want to…

Snape raised his head. His cheeks were damp, but not from the pool. He sniffed; scrubbed the back of one hand over his reddened eyes and nose. He looked up at Harry, whose fingers were twitching towards the sword as if to protect himself.

Snape’s lip curled.

“Did you know it was going to do… that?” he sneered.

“S-say those things? No,” Harry said, quietly. “It, um, it probably just made it all up. Whatever lies would cause the most embarrassment, you know,” he added, blushing.

Snape, however, said nothing.

Harry nervously sat down on the ground beside him.

“Nice sword.” He picked it up.

“I would have got it to you sooner, but you have been… difficult to locate,” Snape looked weary.

“How did you find us?”

“Phineus Nigellus has a second portrait in the Headmaster’s office.”

“Oh,” Harry said. “Does this… does this mean you’re really working for Dumbledore? I don’t understand how you could be trying to help me and yet have killed him.”

Snape was silent, as though having some solemn debate within himself.

“I shall tell you,” he said, low, “and then Obliviate you. He was… dying. His hand… The choice was either Draco or myself. My job was to prevent Draco from damaging himself by killing. Or to protect the Headmaster from a more… unpleasant death, at the hands of someone else.”

Harry wanted to say ‘Why should I believe you?’, but he supposed he held in his hands a sort of proof – why else would Snape be risking everything to give him the sword, now?

“If V… if He looks in my head now and sees you helping me, you’re dead, aren’t you?” he said, quietly.

Snape snorted.

“Undoubtedly,” he said, running a still-shaking hand through his lank hair. “It is too much to hope you have mastered Occlumency?”

Harry shook his head.

“Do you have to Obliviate me?” he whispered.

“I ought, possibly. Or I could compound my treachery by telling you what you need to know – if the Dark Lord discovers this you and I may not get another chance to meet,” Snape said, grimly. “It is inevitable that he will find out, I suppose, on account of your having a part of his soul inside you –”

“W-what?”

Snape paused, glancing at Harry – only to be struck dumb and clap his hands over his mouth as the boy paled.

Eyes wide, Harry recoiled in horror.

“It’s not true,” Harry whispered, beginning to tremble as he gazed up at Snape with renewed hope in his eyes, “Tell me it’s not, that you just said it to hurt me –”

“Harry,” Snape croaked out.

“I… Oh God,” Harry moaned, then glanced about, eyes wild. “What do you mean I have his soul inside me – do you have any idea what that MEANS for me?”

Gazing out unseeingly at the dark trees, Harry felt the wild fluttering of his heart battering against his ribcage, as though it wanted to be let out. Harry gasped for breath; cool night air washed over him and he stood there, gripping his own waist and sobbing.

Snape said nothing.

“What else do you know?” shrieked Harry, white and sickly-looking, snatching up the sword. He leant over suddenly, face almost in the dirt, and heaved wrenchingly – but nothing came out. Harry spat onto the ground, as if the truth sat heavy on his tongue. When he righted himself again, there was a grim look in his eyes.

“Potter, I… Very well. You must die,” Snape said, gravely, “and that the Dark Lord must be the one to do it.”

“I’m a Horcrux,” Harry laughed, morbidly. “Oh God!” He flung the sword down on the dark grass. “This fucking thing kills Horcruxes!”

Snape was silent for a long time. When the older man finally moved, he approached Harry slowly, almost warily.

“Did the possibility never occur to you? You had possession of more facts than I,” Snape asked, softly.

“No!” Harry cried, turning his tear-streaked face to Snape. “Did I never think, ‘Oh well, if I off myself perhaps that’ll help us along a bit!’ I had no idea to look for live things! I’ve been looking for trinkets – fucking rings and lockets and, and…”

“Nagini is also a Horcrux, if I am correct,” Snape said, suddenly.

“Oh,” Harry said, again, deflating. He slumped against a tree trunk, head in his hands. Then he glanced up, giving Snape a shaky smile.

“Dumbledore knew, about me?”

Snape let out a pained laugh.

“Of course Dumbledore knew. Dumbledore told me.”

Harry laughed too, bitterly.

“Of course he did. Really clever of him, to get me to destroy the Horcruxes – gets me emotionally invested in seeing it all end neatly. Makes me less likely to run away.”

“You could,” Snape said, low. “I am not advocating it, but there’s nothing to stop you.”

“I want to!” Harry gasped. “Don’t think I’m not desperate to! Just to tell you all to pack it in and that I’m not,” he took a deep, shuddering breath, “not playing anymore… But people will still keep dying, won’t they?”

“Yes,” Snape said.

“Can you just kill me now?” Harry asked, laughing sadly. “It’d be much nicer to die here.”

“He has to do it,” Snape repeated.

“Oh well,” Harry smiled, thinly, “it was a good try. Can’t give up on my job now, what would Dumbledore say!”

He turned, the tracks of tears lacing their way down his cheeks. Snape had sunk to the ground, back against a tree. Knees drawn up, fingering his wand. Harry, holding himself around the waist, tottered over shakily and sat beside him.

He laid his weary head upon Snape’s shoulder; Snape stiffened beside him. It was only then that Harry realised they were both damp; the chill of the night air seemed to close in on him.

“It’s cold,” he whispered, watching his breath curl away from him. Snape reached over and snagged his heavy black robe in his thin fingers. When he came to lay it over Harry, Harry burrowed closer, needing to be close to Snape, until Snape was forced to put a stiff arm about him.

“Life is such a load of crap,” Harry sniffed, smiling.

Snape snorted.

“Was… was the locket right? Do you really want to…” Harry wasn’t sure how to finish.

Snape sighed.

“You’d do better not to ask,” he growled.

“It’s just that, especially if I’ve got to di – er, if I won’t be around for too much lon…” he couldn’t say it. “I don’t want this to be the last time we ever meet. Do you understand? And if this is the last time, I don’t want us to part without… Without knowing.”

Snape closed his eyes.

“Why does it matter how I think of you?” he whispered, defeated, and in those words Harry heard a silent confession that shocked him to the core.

But also… awoke something, in a dark part of him; a rose bud pushing its way up out of the dark ground toward the light…

“I… it’s a lot to digest,” Harry said, at last. “I’d have thought I’d be horrified. But I’m… not. Is that weird?”

“I’d have thought you’d be horrified too,” Snape said, sourly. “Even I am horrified.”

“At yourself?”

Snape swallowed hard.

“I have never wanted a student before. You are my weakness. I detest you for it.”

“But you also want me,” Harry said, eyes wide with wonder. Then he paused; bit his lip. “What if… what if I gave you permission to… To touch one part of me? Where would you touch?”

“In a hypothetical situation, where touching you would not be very wrong?” Snape snarled, eyes hot with self-loathing. Then his expression turned sly. “Which part of myself would I be touching you with?”

“Eh?” Harry asked, blinking. “I dunno. I thought… something like stroke my neck or… hair, or… Well, don’t people usually touch with their hands? What touch would you want to do?”

“So naïve. I’d stick my tongue up your arsehole,” Snape snapped.

“Oh my God!” Harry cried, eyes huge. A strange, perverse delight filled him.

“I told you it was a sexual thing,” Snape scowled.

Harry struggled away from him – Snape let him go, hands up, placating, looking disgusted at himself.

Harry stood over Snape, trembling with cold and panting. Snape would not look at him.

He made up his mind.

“Do it,” he said.

“What?” Snape snarled, glaring angrily at the ground.

“Do… what you wanted to. If I’m going to die, I want you to. Do it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you don’t want that,” Snape spat. “You’ve had bad news and are, justifiably, feeling reckless -”

Trembling, but not so much with the cold, Harry began to unbutton his shirt.

“Screw me,” he said, fumbling with the buttons, “here, now. Before he reads my mind, or yours, or something else happens –”

“No,” Snape scowled. “Do not tease me, it is unkind. My desire for you is not a thing that ought ever to be consummated.”

“You can’t turn me down!” Harry yelled at him, fingers stalling on his buttons.

“You don’t want this, you idiot!” Snape shouted back.

Harry tore off his shirt.

“I do. Coward,” he sneered, green eyes flashing. He threw his shirt onto the ground, puffing out his skinny chest.

“What did you say to me?” Snape snarled, scrambling up, fingers in the dirt.

Harry licked his lips as they circled each other.

“I said coward, does it wind you up?” Harry repeated gleefully, Snape advancing on him. “Bring it on, Snape!”

“You little fucker,” Snape growled, “you drive me fucking insane; trying to manipulate me, make me lose my temper – gah!” he snarled, kicking the leaves on the dank ground. “No-one makes me as angry as you!”

“Why is that?” Harry smirked, kicking off his shoes.

“Stop stripping!” Snape demanded.

“Have you got a big dick?” Harry asked, cheekily, hopping as he pulled off his socks.

Snape growled in response, eyes hard.

“I don’t know whether I want to hurt you, or…” Snape trailed off.

“Get over here and find out,” Harry said – and pulled down his trousers and boxers in one go.

Snape froze, staring at Harry’s hard –

“Put that away.”

Harry waggled it at him.

“Make me. Headmaster,” he smirked.

Everything happened very fast after that.

Snape lunged at him, and Harry, surprised, staggered backwards. Tripped over the tangled mass of his clothing that was snarled around his ankles.

Ended up on his bare bottom on the ice.

“Oww!” he cried, the cold spearing into his flesh instantly. “Careful!” he called out, as Snape had begun to step onto the ice toward him. “It might crack!”

Snape, frustrated, stood on the bank and growled.

“Get back here,” he said, low.

Harry, on his back, (his genitalia unsure whether to be aroused by Snape or to shrivel up with the cold) paused.

Spread his legs.

Snape sucked in a breath, drawing his wand.

“You’ll get ice burns,” he growled, and in the next moment Harry was levitated above the ice, then flung through the air, landing with a groan on a heap of rank, wet leaves.

He opened his eyes.

Snape towered over him, quite literally – one foot either side of Harry’s chest, he straddled Harry’s body.

Wand in his hand, Snape stood and glowered down at Harry.

“Put some clothes on,” he ordered, dangerously, but Harry could see – he could see…

He slid his hands up Snape’s damp trouser legs. Sitting up, he watched Snape’s eyes widen as Harry’s hands explored his thighs, palms spread, stroking.

Up and up further Harry’s hands travelled, fascinated, outlining Snape’s hips and then moving in. Brazenly palming and fingering the outline of Snape’s erection through the wet fabric.

Snape shivered as Harry outlined its turgid shape with his fingertips, but made no move to step away.

Snape’s eyes fell closed.

Harry watched Snape’s breath curl out of his mouth in short, nervous pants.

“Never really done anything sexual before,” Harry breathed, as Snape unconsciously pushed his erection into Harry’s fingers.

Snape groaned something, throwing his arm over his face.

“What?” Harry whispered, looking up at him.

“Put it in your mouth,” Snape repeated, grimacing, one arm over his eyes.

Harry almost stopped breathing.

He reached up eagerly and slowly undid the buttons holding Snape’s fly closed. Fingers fumbling as though they had forgotten how to do even this simplest of tasks, he got Snape's trousers open and tentatively reached inside.

Snape’s erection was nothing and everything like his own. It was larger, and painfully silk-over-steel hard. It was darker in colour, and thick. The veins stood out more and the head was bulbous and purple. Snape’s balls were large too, the crinkled, hairy skin full and stretched. Harry’s own willing pink erection bobbed and twitched between Harry’s legs.

Snape smelled of lake water. Harry sat up and, gathering his courage – rubbed his face over Snape’s groin. Mouth open, tongue out, lapping at the skin.

Snape started and staggered backwards. His erection bobbed out of the front of his trousers.

“I can’t believe you… Stop that,” he gasped.

Harry, lying on the dark ground nude, shrugged.

“You wanted me to.”

Snape’s chest heaved as he stared down at Harry in apparent distress.

“I d-did not,” he stammered.

“You want me to,” Harry whispered, emboldened. He crawled over to Snape and took hold of Snape’s dick again in his fingers.

Kneeling up, he lowered his lips around the hard flesh, feeling the shocked groan that Snape made reverberate along the entire length of his body.

Pressing his tongue to the underside, he licked a slow, wet trail up Snape’s heavy erection. A small burst of clear fluid from the tip filled his mouth and he tongued the slit curiously.

Snape was trembling. Fists clenched by his sides, teeth gritted, he looked as one trying to hold back a scream under torture looks.

Harry drew back.

“No good?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

“What’s no good,” Snape gritted out.

“Well, obviously I’ve never done this before… You might give me some pointers. I mean, I feel like I’m molesting you…”

“YOU feel like you’re molesting ME?” Snape thundered. “This is the most immoral thing I have ever done in my life!”

“I want to do this,” Harry said, seriously, turning his back on Snape and sinking onto all fours. Presenting his bottom to Snape, he looked over his shoulder. “Just fuck me before we don’t get another chance.”

He turned away, waiting for Snape to finish his internal battle.

He did not have to wait long.

Suddenly, there were hands on his bottom, spreading his cheeks – and a tongue licking desperately at his arsehole.

“Yes!” Harry squeaked in surprise, sensation exploding up his spine. His back arched and legs, instinctively, spread wider.

He turned, watching in fascination as Snape knelt behind him in the dirt, face pressed deliriously in between Harry’s buttocks, feasting on him.

Snape looked up, suddenly.

The look of desire in his fathomless black eyes made Harry’s skin tingle. He pushed his bottom brazenly back into Snape’s face, squirming.

Snape’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed his tongue –

“Oh!” Harry gasped, throwing his head back as that warm, wet feeling pushed inside him. The muscles in his arsehole quivered and protested, but Snape’s hand slid down to fondle his balls and stroke his dripping cock, and Harry groaned.

“So fucking beautiful,” Snape growled, sliding a finger inside just a little, Harry’s passage luscious and wet with saliva. Then, more urgently: “Harry.”

He crawled up over Harry’s back, and the next thing Harry knew there were hot lips at his neck – and a hard cock rutting teasingly against his damp cleft. His bottom felt cold and exposed in the night air where Snape had licked it. He angled his head to the side so that Snape, his chest to Harry’s back, could kiss his white neck softly.

Then he trapped Snape’s erection between his damp thighs and squeezed.

Snape snarled into Harry’s neck, miming fucking him; pawing crudely at Harry’s body with his spidery hands.

“Take your clothes off!” Harry gasped.

“Don’t order me,” Snape growled, nipping Harry’s shoulder with his cruel teeth. “Dirty, sick little thing.” He latched onto Harry’s neck and began sucking bruises into the skin.

“Fuck me,” Harry groaned, shoving his arse back into Snape’s hard groin. “Fuck, in me, yes.”

“You’ve never had a man inside you,” Snape murmured, gripping Harry’s hip with one hand and rubbing his cockhead over Harry’s twitching hole.

“Never, help me,” Harry moaned, thrusting back. “Want you!”

* * * * *

Ron led an anxious Hermione through the dark forest.

Her tirade against him quickly cut short by “Harry’s got Snape,” they hurried back towards the clearing. Ron hoped desperately that he had remembered the way.

As the trees began thinning, they heard a noise like a wounded animal, and the rustling of leaves.

“That’s Harry,” Ron hissed, brow creased in distress. “Snape must have got him!”

“Harry has my wand!” Hermione whispered. “What can we do?”

They crept to the edge of the clearing, hearts in their mouths, expecting to see Snape torturing Harry…

What they saw was two naked men writhing about in the wet leaves, the larger man’s cock up the smaller man’s bottom.

“Oh my God!” Ron groaned, turning his back on the scene and clutching a tree for support. Bending double, he spat onto the ground. “Shit, poor Harry!”

They watched in horror as, decaying leaves plastered to Snape’s bare skin, their former professor thrust his erect cock deeply inside Harry’s open body, driving the young man into the ground. He pinned Harry to the earth and fucked him hard, mercilessly, shoving his hips over and over between Harry’s spread legs. Their bodies were pressed as close as humanly possible – they could not see Harry’s face, for Snape lay over him, holding him to the ground, shagging him vigorously.

“I’ll kill him,” Ron said, instantly, about to stride forward – but Hermione caught his sleeve.

“Look at Harry,” she said, nervously, gazing at the men in the clearing.

“I’m sick of looking,” Ron spat.

“No, but… He’s… clinging on,” she whispered, eyes flickering anxiously to where Harry lay, arms and legs wrapping around Snape’s neck and waist like a limpet.

As Ron’s face drained of any remaining colour, they suddenly heard Harry cry out as Snape fucked into him –

“Yes! Ah, yes! Fuck, fuck, screw me -”

Ron turned away again, shaking, unable to watch as the two men ground their bodies together, rolling over and over in the dark leaves, humping and thrusting against and into each other.

“It’s Imperius. It must be,” Ron whispered.

“You know that doesn’t affect Harry,” Hermione replied, biting her lip.

Suddenly Snape was rolled onto his back and Harry straddled him, bearing down on Snape’s large cock. Sinking onto it with a scream as he grabbed Snape’s hands, linking their fingers.

Snape pumped up into him, jolting Harry hard. Harry clung on; riding him, bouncing roughly.

His hands broke free and he raised them over his head, arching his spine deliciously. Snape’s hands roamed greedily all over his cold, wet-looking skin.

Then they moved again – Harry was shoved off, face-first into the chilly ground. Snape mounted him from behind, laying his body over Harry’s. He lined up his cock and thrust in, and Harry cried out in a way that made Ron clench his fists.

“He’s hurting him.”

“He isn’t,” Hermione choked out. “They’re… enjoying it. Ron, let’s go back.”

“I’m not leaving him.”

“So what do we do, watch?”

“We wait, a-and check Harry’s ok.”

Hermione came and stood beside him. Their backs to the scene, they stood in grim silence as Harry and Snape rolled around desperately in the leaves, crying out and growling. They could hear the heaving breaths, the rustling leaves – and, worse, the wet, rhythmic slapping of skin on skin.

The sound Harry made when he came frightened a bird in a tree above them, making Ron reach for Hermione’s hand in despair. Snape’s orgasm was quieter, and he was murmuring to Harry constantly towards the end. Occasionally they would catch bits of it: “take you hard you little bastard,” or “give, give, harder Potter, that’s it, take, take it,” or “want you, Harry, God!”

“It’s over,” Hermione whispered.

She turned cautiously, and beheld Snape spooned around Harry from behind; both figures docile, soiled, and still.

“Let’s go back. He’ll be along soon.”

Ron said nothing, but strode away from her into the trees, his jaw set.

* * * * *

Harry lay quietly, his body singing. Snape’s strong arms were around him. He was cold, but Snape’s body was warm at his back. He wanted to nestle down into the dirty leaves and live there, Voldemort be damned.

Voldemort.

Harry felt sick. He sat up, turning to look down at Snape desperately.

Snape’s eyes were strangely bright. Unable to stand it, Harry turned away and scrambled up. He fumbled about the clearing, collecting his clothes so that he might dress, but his hands trembled. He kept wobbling and missing when he tried to put his foot into the holes in his boxers.

Something slimy and white slopped down the back of his leg.

He stumbled, humiliated, his eyes swimming with unshed tears – and suddenly Snape was there, steadying him, his fingers clenched on Harry’s arm.

Harry looked up into Snape’s face. Some emotion burned in the older man’s fathomless eyes, something Harry could not recognise.

“Do not,” Snape began, and his voice was rough with emotion, “lose hope.”

Harry almost laughed.

“Hermione would know if there was another way to destroy Horcruxes. We’d have found out by now. The container must be destroyed, by means of which no magical force can repair it…”

Snape’s fingers tightened on his arm, cutting him off, the coarse nails digging into his skin.

“I am not Miss Granger. I will do… all I can,” Snape growled, so close to him now. Harry could smell him, and suddenly he wanted Snape again, ached for him so badly –

Snape tilted Harry’s chin up with a fingertip. But when Harry lifted his mouth for a kiss, their first kiss, Snape drew back.

“You must go,” he repeated, grim, yet gazing hungrily into Harry’s face. “I have already stayed to long, and done God knows what damage.”

He released Harry’s arm, albeit reluctantly, and Harry clung to that reluctance, hoping desperately that it meant there would be another time; when he could be close to Snape again.

“You’re not going to Obliviate me?” Harry whispered.

Snape silently shook his head.

“Why?”

“I… could not bear it,” Snape admitted, quietly. “It may be the worst decision I have ever made…”

“I want to remember,” Harry said, firmly. “It… gives me strength.”

He was aware of Snape’s eyes on him as he fumbled with his clothes. Snape still had not moved away – he was still close enough to touch, to cling to. Harry snatched up the Sword instead, gripping it tightly.

“If I never see you again,” Harry began.

“Don’t,” Snape said, softly.

He moved away from Harry, gathered up his clothes, and Apparated.

Harry stood in the cold clearing; wearing his boxers and one sock, clutching the Sword of Gryffindor, and staring at the spot where Snape had disappeared.

* * * * *

“Where have you been?” Hermione screeched, darting out of the tent like a ferret out of a hole and smacking Harry hard on the arm.

“Ow,” Harry mumbled, scowling.

“Harry,” Ron stood in the tent doorway, fists clenched, his stance tall and rigid. “What did he do?”

“I’m fine,” Harry said.

“Were you with Snape?” Hermione yelped, but there was something false in her manner which made Harry frown. “I’ve never been so worried in all my -”

“Oh shut up, Hermione, stop pretending,” Ron said, suddenly. He was staring hard at Harry’s face, blue eyes piercing. “Are you alright?”

Harry slumped down against a tree trunk, drawing his knees up to his chest.

“He told me what the Prophesy really means. And where we can find another Horcrux,” Harry said, vaguely.

“That’s brilliant!” Hermione squeaked, eyes darting towards Ron nervously.

“Then I did it with him,” Harry added, dropping the Sword onto the ground wearily.

There was a guilty pause.

“We know,” Hermione whispered, head bowed. “We came to find you and we… Saw. I’m sorry, Harry.”

Harry slumped his head against his knees, in order not to look at Ron’s beetroot-red face.

“We were… we wanted to come rescue you,” Hermione whispered, hurrying toward him and kneeling at Harry’s side; smoothing one hand up to cup Harry’s knee, “but then we thought well, you seemed to want him to… So we didn’t stop him. Were we wrong?”

Harry laughed, sadly.

“I’ll kill him,” said Ron, drawing his wand instantly.

“Don’t,” Harry said, firmly. “And no, you weren’t. I wanted him. He’s on our side, Ron. He gave me the Sword.”

“How on earth do you get from ‘Snape’s our hostage’ to ending up shagging?” Ron shouted.

Harry went red, but kept his chin up.

“It just… sort of happened,” he said, weakly.

There was an uneasy silence.

“So,” Ron coughed nervously, “bit of a busy evening really. Nice to be back with you guys, truly.”

Then he looked at Harry and his smile faded. He looked a little sick.

“Where did he tell you we can find the next Horcrux, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“In here,” Harry said sadly, prodding his temple.

“Eh?” Ron blinked.

“He gave you a riddle?” Hermione frowned.

“He gave him more than that,” Ron scowled.

“No, it’s in my head,” Harry said, drawing back his fringe and revealing the lightning bolt. “Quite literally. The last Horcrux… is me.”

* * * * *

“Good job on the beer,” Harry said, several hours later, clinking his bottle against Ron’s as they sat outside the tent.

Hermione had refused to join them. Ever since Harry’s revelation she had sat, sobbing, over her miniature library.

“What’s she looking for?” Ron asked, peering over his shoulder into the dimly lit interior.

“Ways to destroy Horcruxes without, er, destroying them,” Harry said. “I told her to leave it – if Snape’s not found anything I doubt she will.”

Ron was quiet for a moment.

“You know Hermione,” he said, low, “she has to feel she’s tried everything.”

“What I really feel like right now is beer, not books,” Harry shrugged. Ron took a swig from his own bottle.

“I think I get why you did it with Snape,” he said, suddenly. “I mean, the shock would have sent anyone loopy.”

“Cheers,” Harry grinned.

“It’s just… I thought you hated him.”

“So did I,” Harry sighed. “There was always something between us, but I never knew… what it was.” His grin reappeared. “Turns out it was the urge to bonk.”

Ron shuddered.

“Do not,” he said, very severely, “tell me more – I only saw for a second and I think I’m scarred for life.”

Harry laughed.

“Snape said… he said he’d been working on a way to make sure I survived. Protection.”

“Good. Maybe he’ll find something,” Ron shuddered, taking a swig of his beer. “It’s Snape, after all. He’s nothing if not… intense.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry beamed.

Ron spat out his beer. Harry burst out laughing.

Hermione’s head appeared in the doorway of the tent.

“Ronald,” she hissed, her eyes puffy. “You’d think you’d be in here helping me save Harry’s life, not spitting beer all over the ground like a troll!”

“I’m not going to die tonight,” Harry said, gently. “We’ve still got to find the other Horcruxes first. There’s plenty of time to look for an answer – right now I just need to sit with my friends and this bottle of beer and tease Ron about Snape’s enormous -”

“Shut up!” Ron squealed, falling off his perch. “It’s sick!”

“Grab a bottle,” Harry said, nudging one in Hermione’s direction.

Scowling, Hermione picked it up, flipped off the cap with a spell, and sat down beside Harry. Ron righted himself and they drank in silence.

“Can’t believe you were the first one of us to get a shag,” Ron said, darkly. “I mean, you’re not even five foot tall.”

Harry and Hermione burst out laughing.

* * * * *

In the Shrieking Shack, Harry bent, stunned, over Snape’s body. Voldemort’s last words to Snape were still ringing in his ears:

“I do not regret it – you imagined you could aid Potter and live? The Elder Wand regardless, your time was up, Severus. I just hope his tight little body was worth it…”

Kneeling in the dust at Snape’s side, Harry cried out as the older man’s fingers trembled to rip his stained shirt open.

Harry watched in fascination as the material was drawn back and the hideous wound revealed – red, pulsing, and thick with blood as sticky and glutinous as honey.

Snape groaned in despair, and Harry’s head flew up. Snape was watching him intently, black eyes wide in panic. Harry realised that Snape truly expected Harry to just watch him die.

Harry struggled out of his jacket, balled it up and pressed it against Snape’s neck. Snape’s eyes widened.

Harry instantly drew his wand – he knew only one major healing spell to try. The memory of Snape performing it over Draco Malfoy’s broken body was burned into his mind.

“Open his collar wider, Hermione, quick!” he hissed, kneeling beside Snape, his free hand pressed to the bleeding wound on Snape’s neck.

He heard her kneel to his left and her fingers fumble with the buttons, baring Snape’s torn throat further.

Harry wanted to sob. Leaning over Snape’s trembling form, he lifted his wand to the wounds and whispered,

“Vulnera Sanentur. Vulnera Sanentur…”

Snape’s face slackened in shock, but he kept perfectly still as Harry, heart hammering, applied the cure over and over.

Suddenly Hermione was kneeling over Snape too, treating the wounds on Snape’s hands, from where he had obviously tried to shield himself, with muttered “Episkey” and “Tergeo” charms.

Snape looked like he wanted to slump down to lie flat across the floor. He tried to clutch at Harry’s shoulder as his head lolled forwards…

“No,” Ron cried, kneeling to Harry’s right. “Keep him upright, so the blood has to travel against gravity – Hermione, have we got any more dittany?”

“Oh, oh, somewhere!” Hermione was pulling down Snape’s cuff to get at his wrist, when she realised it was leaking blood. “Hold his arm up in the air, Ron, I’ll look!”

Ron shuffled around Harry and took over from her. Harry was crying as he whispered the spell over and over.

They were kneeling in blood now – Snape’s robes were damp and sticky. But then, as Ron leant over Snape and muttered “Tergeo” and the blood vanished, Harry realised that the wound beneath it was closing. On the other side of Ron, Hermione poured the last of their dittany over the worst of the bites.

“Don’t spell the blood away!” he cried. “It goes back in – oh please God it’s working! Vulnera Sanentur…”

Suddenly, he felt Snape’s fingers on his face. Glancing up, he found Snape was looking at him tenderly. The fingers slipped around to the back of Harry’s neck, stroking the skin there, pulling Harry forward…

“Harry, what are you doing to him?” Hermione hissed, wrenching Harry back by his shoulder, breaking the kiss.

Unsealing his mouth from Snape’s was painful; Snape’s face crumpled and Harry returned to him with a groan. Snape’s fingers tangled in his hair. There was blood in Snape’s mouth, but Harry kissed him anyway.

“Harry,” Hermione laid her hand on his back, softly, “he’s still poisoned. Nagini bit him – he needs the antidote!”

Harry drew back, despair darkening his dirty face.

“Where can we get it from?” Ron asked, frantically ripping off the hem of his torn jeans and tying the strip around Snape’s wrist as a bandage.

“We need the venom of the snake,” Hermione said, forlornly. “Harry, it’s hopeless.”

“Harry. Look… at me,” Snape begged unhappily, and Harry looked up to see Snape’s black eyes wet with tears.

“Let me go,” Snape whispered. “I must go, in order that you might live. Take my hand. I knew… I must die, I knew he would find out that I helped you -”

“I tried not to show him – I didn’t think he had seen!” Harry wailed.

“He saw through me – I was not careful enough,” Snape confessed. “I… dwelled on it too much, in my own mind. Take my hand!”

“What will this do?” Harry asked, as Snape began to whisper a charm. A tendril of white light snaked from Snape’s lips – he reached for Harry. Stunned, Harry moved forward and allowed Snape to kiss the magic into him.

“A… charm,” Snape whispered, when he finally pulled back. “It should… work like your mother’s protection. An extra layer. So let me go. Leave me to die.”

“What?” Harry gasped, in horror. “You’re using your death to… No! We’re not leaving you here!”

“Harry,” Snape mumbled, eyes closing, clutching at him.

“It’s the venom, Harry, he’s been bitten several times -” Hermione said, sadly.

“Severus I won’t let you -”

Harry was shaking Snape, but there was no response. Snape’s arm went limp. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor.

Harry got shakily to his feet, the knees of his trousers soaked in blood.

“Help him, Hermione,” he whispered, hopelessly. “You need the venom of the snake.”

Hermione shook her head, her lips mouthing the words “I’m sorry.”

Harry turned away.

“Make sure he’s… taken care of. I have somewhere I need to be, now.”

* * * * *

“I am about to die,” Harry whispered. The dark forest seemed to close in around him.

When he opened his eyes, there they were.

Sirius, Remus. His father. His mother. All smiling at him with the same loving grace…

And… and Snape.

Standing some way off. Hesitant, as though afraid to join them.

So Snape really was gone.

Tears brimmed in Harry’s eyes.

“You’ve been so brave,” Lily beamed at him, gently. Harry spoke with his family, but then he glanced over Remus’ translucent shoulder and noticed the solitary figure retreating, looking embarrassed by its presence.

“S… Severus?” Harry whispered, slipping past his mother and father, walking cautiously over to where the ghostly figure of Snape had frozen, awkward. As though afraid he would not be welcome.

Something about him was different to the other four; he was somehow… paler.

Less there.

“Are…are you dead?” Harry asked. Snape looked down at himself in mild surprise, and then smiled grimly.

“I believe so,” he said, carefully. The tears filling Harry’s eyes spilled over onto his cheeks.

“You’ll stay with me?” he sobbed.

Snape looked very much like he wanted to take Harry in his arms, but when he tried, his fingers sank straight through Harry’s flesh.

“Until the end,” Snape murmured. Harry lifted one hand and tried to touch the silvery hollow of Snape’s cheek, but his fingers moved through Snape as through soft butter.

“Stay close to me,” he said quietly. Snape nodded.

Harry, with some effort, turned away from Snape and smiled to his parents. James, Sirius and Remus were looking at each other in shock and confusion. Lily, however, was looking at Snape with a knowing light in her eyes, and Harry wondered whether she, out of all of them, would have approved of him and Snape. Would have understood.

They set off, Lily to one side of Harry, and Snape on the other. How he managed to keep walking, Harry did not know – but then he would glance at Snape walking next to him, and would feel his courage return, even if just for a moment.

As they entered Voldemort’s camp, Harry tried once again to touch Snape, to take his hand. But their fingers would not connect, no matter how he tried.

* * * * *

“I was, it seems… mistaken,” said Voldemort.

Taking one last look at Snape, Harry stepped out from beneath the cloak, letting it puddle on the forest floor.

“You weren’t,” he called, his heart thudding in his chest, as though making the most of its last precious moments…

Clutching the Resurrection Stone tightly in his fingers, as the only thing that tied him to Snape, he approached Voldemort. He heard the gasps of surprise echoing all around him. Saw Voldemort’s triumphant, and curious, smile…

Saw Snape.

To him, there was only Snape, really.

Snape was not looking at Voldemort.

It was as if, at the last, Voldemort did not matter; had no power over either of them.

“Wait for me,” Harry murmured. He barely saw Voldemort’s look of confusion, for in the next instant, Voldemort had raised his wand, and –

He saw the flash of green light; saw Snape’s face contort for a second with pain and misery as he looked on Harry.

Then … nothing.

* * * * *

“I’ve got to go back, haven’t I?”

“That is up to you.”

“I’ve got a choice?”

“Oh yes. We are in King’s Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to… let’s say… board a train,” Dumbledore smiled.

“Has,” and Harry felt his heart constrict in his chest, “has Severus been past this way?”

“Severus?”

“Yes. He was in the forest with… with my parents. After I used the Stone. He offered his life in the hope that mine might be spared, like my mum did the first time,” Harry said, sadly.

Dumbledore brought one hand up to stroke his long white beard thoughtfully.

“That is an act of great affection. He never told me.”

“So that’s why I’m alive? Not my mother’s magic at all – Snape’s?”

“Severus, I think, knew it to be inevitable he must die. You must mean a great deal to him.” Dumbledore looked at Harry penetratingly.

“So he has been through,” Harry sank down onto the bench in despair. “No!”

“Not presently,” Dumbledore said, a strange smile in his eyes, and Harry looked up at him in confusion.

“You’ve not seen him?” he asked, hope fluttering wildly against his ribcage. Dumbledore shook his head.

“Voldemort resurrected himself with your blood – it is he that ties you to the earth, not Severus. I can think only that poor Severus is very close to death. Was he very like your parents, when you saw him?”

“No, he was… paler. Less… there,” Harry said, desperately. His explanation sounded, to him, very weak, but Dumbledore was nodding seriously.

“I feel that… if you return… there may be more there for you than just dealing with Voldemort.”

Harry nodded. He got up.

“I’ve got to go, then. Before it’s too late.”

* * * * *

He’s not dead. Not dead! Not –

“Oh, Harry!” Hermione cried, as Harry came running up the stairs and barrelled into the room, the Elder Wand clutched tightly in his fist.

Voldemort was gone, they had won – but Harry’s heart was cold as he beheld Snape lying in the bed, deathly pale and quite, quite still.

“Come away, Harry,” Ron muttered, putting an arm about Harry’s shoulders and trying to steer him out of the room. Harry shrugged him off with a cry, and flew across the room to Snape’s bedside, sinking to his knees in despair.

“Is… is he…?” he could not say the words. His hands began to tremble. Hermione turned away, burying her face in Ron’s shoulder, and began to sob brokenly.

“Only just a few moments ago, mate,” Ron murmured, wrapping Hermione in his arms. “She did all she could, but...”

“No,” growled Harry, savagely. “We even killed the bloody snake…” His voice cracked as he spoke. Surely he could not have just missed Snape by mere moments, after everything?

But he still had one last hope.

Even though Dumbledore had once told him that no spell could bring the dead back to life, even though it was too impossible to even really hope for – Harry got to his feet, drawing the Resurrection Stone from his pocket.

“I need the cloak, Hermione,” he said, quietly.

“What are you going to do?” Ron whispered, as Hermione rummaged frantically in her bag. “You know the original legend – he brought his lover back and then went mad because she wasn’t really of this world.”

“He who possesses the Deathly Hallows is the Master of Death,” Harry said, grimly. “I now have all three, nobody in the legend had all three. Thank you,” he added softly, as Hermione passed the cloak to him.

“What do we do with it?” she asked, sniffing.

“It said that Death couldn’t find the man with the cloak,” Harry replied, laying it tenderly over Snape’s still form like a shroud.

“Harry, think of the implications of this!” Ron said, suddenly. “If you can bring back Snape you could bring back Fred, and Remus, and -”

“Harry, don’t,” Hermione interrupted, panic catching alight in her eyes. “Don’t try. It’ll ruin your life – you’ll always be expected to do this, over and over -”

“It’s for bringing loved ones back,” Harry whispered, looking at Ron anxiously. “You know the tale. Loved ones means lovers.”

“No, loved ones means people you love! So you don’t love Fred, and Remus?” Ron shouted, accusingly. “Why won’t you bring them back too?”

“I haven’t brought anybody back yet!” Harry yelled at him.

“What about all the other people that love Fred – what about Remus’ son?” Ron screamed. “How many people do you think love Snape? Probably only you, Harry, nobody else gives two hoots about him -”

“Ron!” Hermione snapped. “You’re being ridiculous. Harry can’t bring back everybody – death is death. It’s his choice to try this for the man he… the man he wants. You can’t expect -”

“YOU’VE NOT LOST A BROTHER!” Ron shouted. “You can’t understand! What harm is there in bringing back Remus and Fred too, Harry? Or maybe just Fred? I mean, what would it harm?”

“Where does it stop, though Ron?” Harry cried. “When they see me bring back people who EVERYBODY KNOWS has died, where will I be? Nobody knows about Snape. We can say he never died. I don’t want to be Master of the Deathly Hallows, I don’t want to spend my life resurrecting people, please – I’d be treated as the next Voldemort! If death truly can be defeated, the world would go mad -”

“So you don’t care enough about Fred and Remus to bring them back. I see,” Ron said, and his voice was deathly cold.

“If nobody knew they were dead I’d try in a heartbeat,” Harry implored him, “you know I love them. But everybody knows they’re gone.”

“Then I’ll go out there and tell this ‘everybody’ you’re so afraid of that Snape’s dead too.”

“Don’t,” Harry whispered. “Please. I… need him.”

“I need Fred,” Ron snapped. “Hermione,” he entreated, “help me out here.”

“If Harry doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life feared and reviled for being as powerful as Voldemort because he can raise the dead,” Hermione said, quietly, “I can hardly blame him. You know how people would react if he could bring back Fred and Remus. The Ministry would brand him the next Dark Lord.”

“Harry’s not a Dark Lord - but he is a right bastard!” Ron scowled.

“Disarm me, then – attack me and take the wand!” Harry shouted. “Kill me and take it and spend your life resurrecting strangers!”

Ron crumpled. He sank to his knees.

“I miss him,” he whispered.

“I know,” Harry said, sadly. “I’m so sorry, Ron.”

Then he picked up the Elder Wand.

“I think you two should leave now.”

* * * * *

The room was dark, lit only by the light from the Elder Wand. The bed appeared empty as Harry stood beside it, the Stone in one hand and the Wand in the other.

Turning the stone thrice in hand, Harry pointed the Elder Wand at Snape’s marble face, and whispered:

“Return.”

Nothing happened.

Harry’s last hope died in his chest. A sudden fall of snow was heaped upon his heart; it shrivelled and died like a dead flower. He felt a chill creep up his spine, and his insides slowly began to freeze over in horror –

Then, from beneath the cloak, he heard a gasp.

* * * * *

Harry sat quietly atop a pile of rubble in the corridor outside the Infirmary. The wall had been blasted through, and the night air drifted sweetly in, enveloping him.

The soft stillness of the castle was almost heartbreaking. As the children went back to their families and the bodies of the dead were buried, the castle mourned.

Harry mourned too, but alone. He spent a lot of time sitting in Hagrid’s new Memorial Cemetery. After the initial crush of people, all desperate to congratulate the Boy Who Lived Twice, people saw the emptiness in Harry’s eyes and left him alone, giving him space to grieve.

But, whilst Harry did grieve, it was more than that.

It was fear.

He had brought a man back from the dead.

Snape had been alive but unconscious for three weeks.

Harry, unsure what he felt and terrified lest people find out Snape had been dead, stayed away.

Except at night, when he would creep in like a ghost and stare at Snape in fascination (I did this, he’s breathing, I did that). He wanted to press a kiss to Snape’s pale, lined face, but Snape was still very ill.

Harry was petrified that, if he kissed Snape, the man would feel as cold as marble.

Snape, alive again, was amazing and fascinating. Yet also… utterly terrifying.

Ron and Hermione seemed a little afraid of him. Harry did not blame them. His own power terrified him. He had buried the Elder Wand, in a fit of fear and panic at being found out, in the Cemetery, unmarked, under a rose bush.

Harry knew where it was. Everyone else assumed he still carried it. Perhaps that was why they avoided him.

Harry had dreams at night of being back at King’s Cross, of running along the platform after a retreating dark figure, who was eventually swallowed up by mist.

He awoke in the dark, alone, to the memory of calling Snape’s name.

 

PART II

Five months later.

“Mr Snape, come in.”

Snape, back rigid with pride and effort, instantly regretted leaving his cane outside the door.

Pride be damned – if he stumbled and fell during the few steps needed to reach the chair, he might be too exhausted to get up again.

Having to conduct his Ministry Compensation interview from the carpet would be less than dignified.

As he seated himself stiffly, the clerk tapped his wand on a towering pile of parchments.

One flew out, eagerly.

Snape recognised his own handwriting as the paper was smoothed out across the desk, and the clerk perused it in silence. A Quick Quotes Quill hovered nearby over a fresh piece of parchment.

“It says here you have been advised by the Potter Trust to seek charitable compensation for your injuries from the Ministry.”

Snape permitted himself the small humiliation of nodding. Once.

The quill began scribbling.

“You have already received a small care package from the Trust, I take it? They have given you… let me see, the largest single payment to date. Five thousand galleons. I would have thought that would do a man quite nicely,” the clerk added, glancing up.

“The Potter Trust are not quite as generous as they seem,” Snape rasped out, voice thick and gravelly in his recently-mended throat. “They calculated the amount necessary for one year’s worth of antivenin ingredients – which is the amount they awarded me. It is not quite five thousand,” he added, bitterly.

“You are currently unemployed?”

Snape nodded, black eyes flashing with hatred.

“As of May I was no longer Hogwarts’ Headmaster.”

“I see…” (The turning of pages.) “Why did the Potter Trust only award the one year?”

“It said on the letter it was their policy to review charity funds on a yearly basis. As they are a new charity, set up since the war ended, one can only assume it will still exist next year. God knows what Potter will do with the money,” Snape grumbled. Talking was painful.

“Will you reapply? Next year?”

“I might suffer the indignity and humiliation of it.” (If I am still around by then, Snape added darkly, but only to himself).

“Did you speak to Mr Potter directly?”

“Hardly. He apparently has a large office of employees, most of whom are more stupid than he is.”

“So Mr Potter does not know he has been funding your treatment since June? You were injured in… May, was it?”

“I have no idea,” Snape shrugged. “And May, indeed.”

“But, in the meantime, you have been advised that the Ministry is providing compensation to some members of the Order of the Phoenix who were injured in the war…”

“I was advised to try.”

“What sort of compensation do you believe the Ministry could offer you?” The clerk glanced up over his spectacles at Snape, the gaze strangely penetrating.

“The son of Remus Lupin was awarded a sum of money and a property…” Snape said tightly, after a long silence.

“He had lost both his parents, however.” The Quill was still scribbling furiously.

“Have I not lost something?” Snape snarled. “My dignity, my health, my ability to work?”

“Are you receiving any treatment at present? St Mungo’s for instance?”

“No,” Snape snapped. “Incompetent fools, I might just as well ask you to treat me, for all they know!”

“What is your diagnosis? Oh – blow,” the Quill had been so enthusiastic in its writing that it had run out of paper and started writing onto the desk. The clerk swatted at it angrily and shoved a fresh piece of parchment under the nib.

“It’s private,” Snape sniffed, when the whole pantomime was finished and the Quill hovering in anticipation of his answer.

“Mr Snape, it is in your best interests. It will go no further than me. And a few others…”

“The venom from the snake will not leave my immune system,” Snape scowled, “and is slowly poisoning me from inside. I ought to be dead, I have no idea why I am not. There is no reported case of survival after this sort of injury, and I may not survive much longer. St Mungo’s have no idea how to deal with me.” Snape sneered at the Quill.

“Which is why the Trust awarded you a sum of money to create your treatment in private, I see…” More scribbling and turning of pages, until: “Well, Mr Snape, following the form you filled out last month, I have been advised that we have a small selection of packages for you to choose from.”

Snape sat up straighter, surprise obvious on his thin face.

“Indeed,” he blinked.

“Of course – your status as a war hero and Order of Merlin recipient -”

“Third Class,” Snape muttered, angrily.

“ – entitles you, in this case, to several options. You discounted the option of having your Order of Merlin upgraded…”

“Some things are just pointless. That entire form was full of pointless compensations,” Snape snapped. “As I recall, a lifetime supply of Honeyduke’s chocolates was one of the options.”

“Well, the Ministry has three packages for you to choose from, to help with your current, ah, unfortunate predicament.”

“Three,” Snape said, seriously. “That is unexpected.”

“Firstly, there is the monetary option. You are entitled to a cash grant, a one-off payment to assist you with your treatment, for life.”

Snape’s eyebrows rose.

“Indeed. That is most… generous. Might it be enough to purchase a house? My own was seized.”

The clerk blinked.

“But I thought you were a hero? Isn’t there a statue of you in Knockturn Alley, somewhere?”

Snape rolled his dark eyes.

“Apparently. I have yet to see it. There is a great difference between erecting a statue and ensuring the person whose image it is in has somewhere to sleep at night. I find the whole thing sickening.”

“Well I believe,” the clerk shuffled through his papers, “it is a considerable sum.”

Snape looked like he wanted to rub his hands together; he almost glowed with satisfaction.

“Good,” he said, shortly.

“Let me see… Yes, here we are. You are entitled to a one-off payment of… three thousand and fifty eight galleons, three sickles and… a knut. Yes, one knut.”

Snape’s face turned the colour of sour milk.

“What?” he hissed. “Is that all? That is even less than I got from bloody Potter for a single year!”

“Yes, well, there is also a land option. You have been awarded a small plot of land… somewhere in northern Scotland, I believe it is…”

“Probably the outer Hebrides,” Snape scowled. “Half way up a mountain.”

The clerk glanced at the paper. Then dropped it onto the desk, guiltily. He hastily retrieved another from the file.

“Or… ah. Yes. Then there’s... Right,” the clerk bent nervously over his papers as though he wanted to hide behind them, drawing his wand from his sock.

In a room close by, a bell sounded.

The Quill went very still.

“What?” Snape snapped.

“I am strongly advised to encourage you to accept this third option,” the clerk whispered, glancing towards the door. Snape stared at the motionless Quill, one hand slipping silently towards his own wand.

“What is it? I have been offered my own personal property… within Azkaban? Fully furnished, reliable neighbours, lovely sea view?” Snape sneered.

The sound of footsteps coming down the hall made Snape turn, eyes darting about suspiciously.

“No, Mr Snape, not Azkaban,” the clerk said, low. “Trust me, this option will benefit everybody, especially yourself. Do you accept?”

The door opened. Snape’s mouth fell open.

“What on earth is this?” he stammered.

“Good, Mr Snape. I know you have made the right choice here.”

* * * * *

Three weeks later.

Snape’s eyes burned as he tried to discreetly read the morning Prophet in a crusty Muggle café.

One aching hand clutching his mug of tea, head aching despite the drink being liberally laced with potions, he squinted. There was no mistaking the headline.

‘BOY WHO LIVED TWICE – DISAPPEARED!’

Snape saved the front page, smoothing it out flat across the table. The rest of the paper he folded up and slipped into his pocket, to use for kindling later.

He was not so well off since his galleons from the Potter Trust had finally arrived (on the day he had returned, strangely disorientated and empty-handed, from the Ministry) that he could afford to waste money on newspapers.

Snape had wasted no time in making his purchases in Knockturn Alley – setting up a tiny laboratory suspended around and over the sink in this stinking, one room hovel.

With little ventilation, the fumes of his restorative potions were cloying and heavy. Snape escaped to the café once each afternoon to read the paper and try to disguise the sickening taste of his potion with heavily-sweetened tea.

He was beginning to improve.

So much for the lauded attempts of those idiots from St Mungo’s…

Three weeks of his own efforts and he could already stand for longer than ten minutes.

Snape glowered morosely at the photograph of Potter, taken with the boy looking thoroughly uncomfortable on his first day of Auror training in September, only a month ago. Potter squirmed under the camera flashes, then peered beyond the pops of the bulbs and caught sight of Snape. He smiled, shyly.

Snape laid his hand over the image, heart suddenly pounding. He had not seen Potter in person since that night in the Shack, in May.

Despite being bedbound, first in Hogwarts and then St Mungo’s - all well-publicised - there was no sign of Potter at his bedside.

He could not help but feel bitter.

Serves you right for hoping, he thought, nastily. You genuinely believed that you meant something to Potter. You fool.

Looking back at the page, he was suddenly very angry with Potter for being so self-centred as to just up and disappear. So nobody knew where the boy was, finding him could hardly be difficult? Potter was bound to be somewhere ridiculously obvious. What a selfish thing to do, to worry all his friends sick…

Snape decided he had had enough of Potter’s melodramatics. Right there in the café (he could never go back there, now), he gripped his wand, concentrated hard on Potter’s stupid, self-obsessed, beautiful face – and Disapparated.

* * * * *

Snape stumbled upon landing; all around him was barren landscape which he did not recognise.

The solitary house, buffeted by the elements, looked so flimsy Snape almost suspected it of being held up by a charm.

Snape drew his robe about himself, looking grimly up at the sky.

Rain was coming. In the west, the sky was thick and black as treacle.

He picked his way over the hillocks and rocks, boots squelching. Trust Potter to make his home in the middle of a swamp. Magic must truly be holding this place up.

Rather than risk scraping his knuckles on the door (the paint was peeling off, acrid like rust), Snape banged the head of his cane against it.

Sharply. Several times.

There was a crash from inside the house, as though he had shocked the occupant.

Good.

Snape tapped his foot and scowled, fighting off the urge to shiver as his robes whipped up around him. His robes were the last vestige he held of his former life. Beneath them, his clothes were thin and worn. Mostly his father’s. An indignity of the highest level.

He was left to wait for a long time.

The very stones of the house seemed to tremble with the approaching storm. The air was close – rain poured from the sky several miles off, a grey curtain approaching ever nearer.

Then the door was thrown open.

* * * * *

Potter looked out at Snape as though he had seen a ghost.

Mute. Eyes huge; mouth working like a dying fish; jaw so slack it was almost flapping in the wind…

Snape looked at that gormless, eighteen-year-old face… and loved him. Against his will and to his utter disgust, he found his feelings unchanged since last Winter. Even – even! – despite Potter leaving him to recover all alone, the little shit.

Then again, his hideous perversion for Potter had endured, un-nurtured, for almost two years now. He could not remember the day it started, only that he had longed for Potter so desperately and wanted to die because of it.

Potter looked frail, and so Snape’s traitorous heart constricted.

“Oh,” Potter whispered, “I… I…”

“You might invite me in,” Snape snapped, unnerved by just how unnerved Potter appeared to be at the sight of him.

Potter stumbled back as Snape stepped over the threshold.

“God, this is great, this is so great to see you,” Potter squeaked, glancing about in apparent terror.

“I can see that,” Snape snorted, bitter at the outright lie. “I saw how much rush you were in to visit me during my recuperation.”

“I didn’t, um, visit you? At St Mungo’s? You were there for a couple of months, are you… better?”

“No,” Snape snapped, accusingly, as though this were Potter’s fault.

Potter glanced about wildly, snatching up a paper from his overcrowded table.

“Um, have you come about the Trust money? I’ll, I’ll give you more – you can have my own private money, here,” Potter stammered, thrusting the first thing he could see into Snape’s hands – a vase, it turned out.

Snape frowned and set it down.

“I didn’t come to demand more,” he scowled.

“You didn’t?” Potter squeaked, squeezing the paper desperately in his palm.

“No. Please,” Snape said, gruffly.

There was an awkward silence. Potter seemed to be trying to sink into the ground by will alone. Red faced, he suddenly blurted:

“So… would you at least like to come in?”

Snape blinked.

“I am in.”

Why was the boy so nervous?

“Oh. Yes. Right. Tea?”

As Potter made the tea – the Muggle way, Snape noticed, derisively – and they waited for the water to boil, Potter leant his back against a kitchen unit.

He then proceeded to stare at Snape as one… starved looks.

It was a little disconcerting.

“I’m not really sure how to do small talk with you,” Potter admitted suddenly into the silence, startling Snape. “You don’t really strike me as the type.”

“We could talk about something more substantial, then,” Snape huffed. “Such as why you are living in a hovel in the middle of nowhere?”

Potter’s face fell.

“I wanted to get away, after the war,” he said, turning to look out of the window, shoulders slumped.

“Why?” Snape snapped. “You had everything going for you, unlike the rest of us -”

“I was unhappy,” Potter muttered, sadly. “I’d really rather make painful small talk than do this, if you don’t mind. Rain’s coming.”

Snape fumed in silence.

“So,” Potter mumbled, laying out the tea things in an over-cautious manner, as though he did not trust his own hands, “where do you work, now?”

“I don’t,” Snape snapped. “I am miserably unemployed. You?”

“Tesco,” Potter said, plonking two mugs of smoky dark tea and a cold bottle of sweaty milk onto the table. “And I do Care work – I’m only at Tesco two days a week. Two other days I go to old people’s houses – washing, meals, you know.”

Snape almost spat out his tea.

“And this is preferable to becoming an Auror, is it?” he sneered.

“I like it,” Potter said, with false brightness, eyeing the mess Snape had made upon the tablecloth, but making no move to Banish it. “In the Care job I get to see people – some of them are really interesting – and at Tesco I get to be quiet and keep to myself. Stacking shelves mostly -”

“That must pay well,” Snape said, darkly.

“Don’t really need much here – I barely use the electricity or anything, I’m pretty frugal.”

“Do you see your friends often?” Snape asked tritely.

“Um… They’re pretty busy…”

“They don’t know where you are, do they,” Snape scowled.

“How did YOU find me?” Potter snapped.

Snape, unsure how to answer, ignored him.

“Is there a point to this little venture of yours, Potter? You have been out in society long enough to know that fame is a beast. One cannot just run and expect it not to follow.”

“That’s not it! I’m not here because people… I just had enough of Wizarding life. I wanted to do things my own way. Sick of all the expectations.”

“That is a pathetic excuse for running away, worrying all your little friends sick -”

“So, um, you still live in Spinner’s End?” Potter interrupted, eyes hard.

“No,” Snape snapped. “My property in Cokeworth was confiscated, after it was deemed to be corrupted with dark magic.” The curling of Snape’s lip betrayed what he thought of this decision. “I have a lingering injury from the war - you might remember. Possibly, if you rack your meagre brains very hard -”

“Yes,” Potter ground out.

“I rent, and my time is mostly taken with concocting the remedy for this... affliction.”

“What’s still wrong?” Potter asked, anxiously biting his lip. He stared at Snape with a concern that looked genuine, and made Snape’s chest ache strangely.

“The snake’s venom is still in my system,” Snape scowled. “It will poison me slowly, unless I take a restorative antivenin draught. Hence your Trust and their… contribution.”

“It takes all your time?” Potter blinked. “Some remedy.”

“It does not take up all my time,” Snape snapped. “I am considering setting up a business.”

Although how he was going to run a business from a one-room hovel with nothing spare to brew in but a teapot and an egg poacher was beyond him.

“Ah, so that’s why you’re here,” Potter grumbled. “You want another loan.”

Snape opened his mouth to tell Potter where he could stuff his loan. Then he thought of the egg poacher, and his broken gas ring, and shut his mouth.

“My Trust now does loans for small businesses too,” Potter blundered on, brows knit together. “Helping people set up. It’s a better investment. I’m told, anyway – I don’t deal with all the loans, there’s a board of Goblins who do most of it.”

“I thought as much,” Snape said, darkly. “Very well, kindly invest in my potions business. I’ll tell you what I need right now -”

“No,” Potter snapped, suddenly.

“No?” Snape almost shouted, his visions of a fully-stocked laboratory crumbling back into dust.

“If it’s purely magical, not health related, then we can’t help you,” Potter said, jaw set in that infuriatingly stubborn manner of his.

Snape sat bolt upright.

“What?”

* * * * *

“The Trust doesn’t give money to jobs magic is needed for,” Potter snapped.

Snape was silent for a moment as the urge to ring Potter’s scrawny neck reared up and then died again. Then his eyes narrowed.

“Since when? Might one ask why?”

“No,” Potter growled, morose. He started collecting up the tea things. Snape’s half-full cup was unceremoniously snatched from under his very nose.

“This is ridiculous,” Snape sneered, at Potter’s back. “How is a wizard supposed to make his living – we can’t all rise to the lofty heights of Tesco!”

“Don’t you fucking make fun of my job!” Potter yelled, dumping the tea set in the sink, incensed.

Then he snatched up one cup and hurled it at the wall, narrowly missing Snape’s head.

Snape, teeth bared, fumbled to scramble out of his chair - and almost collapsed. He scrabbled in his robe pocket and drew his wand, fist trembling as he pointed it at Potter.

“Now I realise why you left society, Potter,” he snarled. “How dare you try to attack an ill man, one you invited into your home!”

Potter just stood there, hands balled into fists, shaking with anger.

“I didn’t even invite you in - take it back,” he demanded, suddenly. “What you said about Tesco.”

“It is inconceivable to me how you – who could have any career – could throw all that away to take a menial job that my father could have done! With your privileges, it is obscene! An insult to those of us who have to scrabble in the dirt to get anywhere!” Snape spat.

“You don’t understand!” Potter shouted at him - defiant, bold, beautiful little shit that he was. “I’m HAPPY with this job!”

“Bullshit!” Snape snorted, jaw quivering. “You’re throwing your life away – stop standing there like an impotent SQUIB, boy! Draw your wand!”

“I see no need,” Potter ground out, “for fighting. Still so immature, Snape?”

“Afraid?” Snape simpered, trying to rile Potter. “How far the mighty have fallen. I’ll hex you out of this ridiculousness if I have to!”

“I’m not afraid,” Potter spat out. “I’m above this.”

He turned away – but Snape seized his arm and yanked him back.

“Draw your WAND, boy,” Snape growled. “I just threatened you!”

Potter punched him.

Snape had not been expecting that.

“You want a fight, I’ll give you a - are you ok?” Potter gasped, looking horrified as Snape staggered backwards.

“So pathetic,” Snape choked out, fingers pressed to his blooded nose as pain exploded across his face. “Only Muggles fight with their fists -”

“DON’T INSULT MUGGLES!” Potter shouted.

Instead of attacking Snape, however, he dashed to the cupboard and pulled out what looked like a biscuit tin. Opening it, he drew out a long object wrapped in newspaper, then hurled it down onto the table.

“It’s not even ON me, how can I fight BACK?” Potter cried.

Snape advanced cautiously, one hand against his bloody nose, and plucked at the crisp paper. It fell away to reveal, nestling inside -

“What does this mean?” Snape hissed, picking up Potter’s wand and staring at it. “You keep it locked away? Potter, do you have any idea how exposed you are in this Godforsaken location? How you have lasted all these weeks without it, living like a peasant, like some poor Muggle -”

“WELL MAYBE I WANT TO BE A MUGGLE! MAYBE I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH WIZARDS!” Potter suddenly screamed.

Snape stepped back.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he sneered. “You’re Harry Potter.”

“Yeah,” Potter snorted. “Harry Potter, the Squib who lived!” He snatched up his wand, only to fling it across the room. “It’s useless, Snape! Might as well be a fucking twig!”

Snape’s eyes widened.

“How?” he whispered.

“I don’t know how,” Potter said, sagging. “It just… drained away. In the past few weeks. Gone.”

He looked so deflated, all of a sudden, as if all the fight had gone out of him.

“And you never thought to mention this to anyone?” Snape demanded. “When did it start? Last I heard you were on that ridiculous Auror training programme -”

“So I quit when my magic started to fail, whatever, Snape! I’d rather die than live as an object of pity. I did the next best thing – I left. And now I don’t ever want to see any wizards again. So put your wand away, if you don’t mind. And then bugger off. Please.” Potter looked about, desperately. “Take this for your face, first.”

He held out a towel. Snape snatched it from him.

“You are clearly unwell,” Snape said, leaning his elbows upon the table and dabbing at his face. “I am incapable of leaving you when you are unwell -”

“Oh, what?” Potter scowled. “Incapable my arse!”

“If you think I’ve spent all these years protecting you to watch you waste yourself away lining up cans of baked beans so they all face the right way!” Snape spat. “It’s so fucking ordinary Potter – it’s beneath you!”

Potter laughed, bitterly.

“There’s nothing you can do, I feel… suffocated around magic. I’m keeping as far away from wizards as I can get. Go, Snape. The Trust will set you up, I’ll owl them in the morning.”

“You’d not let me help you merely for fear you might be faced with magic?” Snape sneered.

“Yes,” Potter snapped, turning away, “I really would. I’m never going back there, and if you try to come back here, I’ll move. I’ve had it. Please leave now.”

He stared stonily out of the window.

Snape - frustrated, denied - limped quietly to the door and opened it.

“This will be,” Potter said suddenly, quietly, “the last time I shall see you. I’m… sorry, for everything. But at least… you’re alive.”

As Snape looked back, surprised, he watched the younger man collect his old wand from the floor, nurse it in his fingers for a moment – then drop it into the bin, shoulders slumped in defeat.

It was the hopelessness of the gesture that made Snape do that he did next.

* * * * *

“I have lost my magic too,” he said suddenly, one foot already over the threshold.

Potter’s head snapped up.

“What?” the young man choked out. “Are you… are you making FUN of me?”

Snape drew his wand and flung it down onto the table in reply.

“How did you get all the way out here without a wand?” Potter added, staring at Snape’s wand crossly.

“Portkey,” Snape said, quickly. He gazed at Potter, eyes hard and penetrating.

“Whatever,” Potter snorted, drifting over to the table and taking up Snape’s wand in his fingers.

Rolling it across his palms, he suddenly seized it as if to snap it in two, watching Snape intently for a reaction.

When he received none, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“You won’t mind if I burn it along with mine, then?” Potter crowed.

Snape shook his head, insides flipping in panic, but he had relied for too long upon his ability to appear convincing - Potter dropped the wand as though burnt, eyes widening.

“Do as you wish,” Snape said, low. “I have no need of it. I keep it only as a deterrent. It has not worked for me since… the war.”

Potter’s mouth parted. Snape’s eyes were involuntarily drawn to those lips, to the memory of them on his own – how soft they felt, what it was like to push his tongue inside –

“How… do you expect me to believe you?” Potter whispered. “And who gave you the Portkey, then – who else knows I am here?”

Snape could not answer. He had no way to convince Potter – it was a foolish endeavour, Potter would never in a million years believe him. The boy would have to be desperate indeed to snatch at something so flimsy –

Gazing at Snape with eyes large and luminous, Potter staggered toward him.

He seemed half-delirious with the need to believe Snape’s words; he clung to Snape’s sleeve in wonder.

“Swear to me, sw… Swear it’s true,” Potter gasped, eyes searching Snape’s face frantically. “Swear you wouldn’t lie to me. I need to know, I need… I need you.”

“I swear,” Snape said instantly, as a wave of overwhelming longing crashed over him at Potter’s last words.

“Since the war? Yours drained away? Please let it not just be me, please -”

“It isn’t. Just you. Potter, you aren’t alone -”

The boy seized Snape’s robe desperately in his trembling fingers.

“It’s because we died,” Potter whispered, face obscenely close, clinging to Snape’s arm. “I’ve been thinking about it constantly – that’s the only thing I can think of! Thank God it’s not just me! It must be because I brought you… Oh, Snape!”

Snape stood statue-still, and for one moment he was convinced Potter was about to undo all of that work to separate them since the war ended, and kiss him.

Instead, he was forced to allow Potter, poor trusting fool that the boy was, to sob brokenly into his shoulder.

“I never died,” he whispered, at last.

“Yes, you did,” Potter moaned. “I brought you back – and now I’ve done this to us! Oh, Snape, I’m so, so sorry…”

* * * * *

Snape stared out of the window of the guest bedroom. He looked at his now-useless wand, which he had retrieved and now lay mockingly on the bedside table.

He was torn as to which situation gave him more concern.

That he was now bound to remain in Potter’s house as a virtual Squib – or that he had been summoned back to life by a seventeen year old boy.

What had even brought him to this house in the first place? When all the Wizarding world was hunting high and low for Potter, it had been but the work of a moment for Snape to find him. How had he done that?

If Potter was genuinely afflicted and unable to perform magic, how was Snape supposed to concoct a remedy for him without the use of his own magic? How was he to brew his own restorative potions with Potter breathing down his neck?

Worst of all, what would Potter do if he discovered Snape was… lying? That would be the end of their association.

In the very act of trying to bring them closer (you stupid old fool), Snape had set in motion something that must surely come crashing down around him, in the end.

How long would he have to keep up this farce for?

There were no answers to any of his questions from the dark, barren landscape surrounding the cottage.

Then a fork of lightening speared its way across the sky, and thunder rolled, as if to say ‘we know your secrets’.

Snape put his head in his hands. How did he always end up following his heart into these situations?

* * * * *

When he opened the door, sometime later, Potter was busying himself in the kitchen.

Spreading jam on limp sliced bread from a plastic bag, the like of which Snape had not seen since he was a child. Setting out crisps and cheese with the word ‘value’ on the packets.

Potter’s smile was watery; the boy’s eyeballs were a dull pink.

Snape seated himself stiffly at the table and allowed Potter to fuss around him, watching Potter pull a pack of eggs from the rattling old fridge.

He frowned as Potter set a frying pan on the stove, lit the gas and dumped some food into the pan, but said nothing.

“I can’t believe how lucky we are to have each other,” Potter was saying, “I thought I was the only one this happened to, God I was so lost! I wanted to ask you, but I was so scared. You must have gone through hell. I can’t imagine dealing with this and a physical injury – not being able to do… Well, it feels like your arm’s been cut off, doesn’t it?” he bent, whispering into Snape’s ear.

Snape nodded; a rigid, severe movement. Anything not to betray the shudder of emotion that had soared through him at Potter’s sudden closeness.

“But we’ll get through it together,” Potter carried on, his care-free smile a little manic around the edges. “Maybe there’s a cure. I left too quick – I just went on my need to get away. I lost my identity completely, I wasn’t thinking! If I’d been Hermione I’d have packed an entire library of books first!” he gestured around the bare walls with the spatula.

He hurried back to the pan, stirring with one hand. With the other, he put some cold food onto Snape’s plate and handed it to him.

Snape stared down at it in confusion.

“Are those meant to be fried?” Snape asked, watching Potter prod the jam sandwiches and crisps around in the pan.

Potter flinched, blinking.

“Oh. Oh!” he squeaked, turning off the gas suddenly and dumping the pan in the sink, before turning the taps on full. Then his eyes fell upon the raw eggs he had just cracked onto Snape’s plate. “Oh!” he wailed.

Snape laid a hand on Potter’s arm.

“Sit,” he said gruffly.

Potter’s lip wobbled as he sat.

“Stop crying,” Snape added, firmly.

Potter bit his lip.

“Put jam on that,” Snape ordered, placing a slice of bread before Potter then watching sternly as Potter did as he was told. Snape then turned off the taps, dragged the bin over and emptied the sodden mess of blackened sandwiches and crisps into it.

When he turned around, tears were slithering silently down Potter’s red face.

“Eat your sandwich,” Snape said, not unkindly, getting some bread for himself. He sat and watched Potter nibble half-heartedly at his own meal, still crying intermittently.

“Providing a cure can be found in the realm of potions,” Snape continued, suddenly, his own sandwich untouched, “I can try to make one with my… limited resources. We will, however, need to get in touch with the outside world in order to obtain what we need. I suggest you owl Miss Granger.”

Potter nodded, sadly.

“I guess I can’t run from this forever,” he whispered.

“No,” Snape assented, glancing down at his unappealing sandwich.

“Not hungry?” Potter asked, sniffing. “Or, or don’t you like jam?”

“I eat what I’m given,” Snape said, harshly. “But first I am going to open a window. Your cooking stinks.”

* * * * *

When Snape went to bed, he found Potter loitering, ghostlike, in the doorway. Arms holding himself, Potter leant against the doorframe in an oversized jumper.

“Is your nose ok?” he whispered.

Snape nodded, dumbly. Potter almost smiled. Then his young face darkened.

“How do you make the potions to keep you alive if you can’t do magic?”

It was not an accusation. Eyes large in the dim light, Potter clutched at his own waist and waited patiently.

Snape, who had been wondering the same thing himself, sat up.

“One does not require a wand to make potions,” he said, bluntly.

“I can’t make potions,” Potter said, quietly.

Snape snorted.

“You never could, if one recalls correctly.”

One corner of Potter’s mouth quirked upwards slightly.

“You’re right.”

“Perhaps I have a little reserve of magic left,” Snape said, carefully, “which enables me to make potions, but not perform spells…”

“Perhaps,” Potter said, green eyes still piercing Snape thoughtfully. If Snape had known Potter to be anything other than a hopeless Legilimens, he would have been afraid of that look. As it was… Potter had no way of knowing.

Snape hoped not, at any rate.

“I shall start on your cure in the morning,” Snape said, fingers twisting in the sheets as he sought to steer the conversation in other directions. “Something must be dampening your magic. We should also pursue this… bringing me back from the dead business. I will owl the library. You have an owl, I take it?”

Potter nodded.

“It’s called Albus,” he whispered.

Snape shuddered.

“I will owl them and… you will owl Miss Granger.”

“I’m the Master of Death. Or, I was,” Potter amended. “Do you think… I had too much power, and now it’s being drained for doing something so… unnatural? I dug up the Elder Wand – it doesn’t work for me either.”

“I have no idea,” Snape said, which was probably the first honest thing he had said in hours. God, how he hated himself. But it was a necessary lie.

Potter sighed.

“See you in the morning, then,” he said, low, then turned soundlessly.

Suddenly, he paused.

Snape held his breath.

“It’s so amazing seeing you… like this,” Potter said, blushing. “I… You’re like a miracle.”

“If you did what you say, it is a bloody miracle,” Snape snapped. “You did this.”

“I couldn’t do it again, though. I did… the most wonderful thing, and I was terrified of it. But now, I can’t do anything, and… It’s even worse. I’m nothing, now. Good night.”

Potter closed the door. Snape listened to his soft feet padding away down the small corridor.

Snape stared at the door, where Potter had stood, and cursed himself to hell for hoping that Potter had come to his room to make love with him.

* * * * *

Morning dawned all too soon, watery and pale.

Snape had been watching the room slowly lightening for hours. The curtains were thin, the walls were white.

He could not sleep.

He had inadvertently imprisoned himself here.

Of course, he could leave now. Apparate out from where he lay.

But then he would never see Potter again.

* * * * *

The immediate priority was his medicine. That was why Draco Malfoy was standing, sniffing distastefully, in Potter’s parlour.

“Tell me again why you couldn’t buy this for yourself?” Draco grumbled, unshrinking Snape’s boxes. Snape greedily began rummaging through them. Potter had been generous in his desperation to find a cure. Snape had everything he could possibly think of to brew with now.

“You fractured the glass, did you just fling them in?” he demanded, holding up a glass bottle that looked so fragile it might as well have been spun out of a cobweb.

Draco scowled, not looking at him.

“I’ll get you another. Was there anything else?”

“Yes. I need you to search your father’s library for any information on the Deathly Hallows. Hogwarts as well. But it must be done in secret – Potter’s situation must not be known.”

“What situation?” Draco asked. “We all know Potter has all three. The ‘Prophet’ had a field day. What’s the big deal?”

“He who owns all three Hallows is said to be Master of Death,” Snape said.

“And I’m a Hufflepuff in a pink tutu,” Draco snorted.

“I died, that night in the Shack,” Snape added, simply. He had not been going to tell Draco, but the boy’s indifference hurt. He watched the young man’s face paling with some satisfaction. “Potter brought me back. I need to know if it’s ever been done before. Specific cases. What happened to them.”

“Has Potter gone mad since?” Draco breathed.

“No. But he is unwell. That must not be known – he would be a target. Here’s my next list. You can add another of that bottle you broke onto it.”

Draco took the list abruptly and made for the door without looking back.

“Draco,” Snape whispered.

The blond dutifully stopped.

“What?”

“Why… don’t you look at me?” Snape muttered.

“How can I?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

Draco was silent. Snape watched his back for a long time, until Draco’s blond head finally turned.

“People… have been going around for months now saying they were wrong about you. How you were hiding your true allegiance. It’s all I hear, bloody Potter going on about how you were good all the time. Which is great for those people who were on his side. But what about us? My family? We sided with you openly at the time, but oh, how convenient for you, you were just playing a role! Well, you could have fucking warned us!” Draco’s words ended on a shout.

Snape opened his mouth.

“Don’t bother! I’ll get your fucking list. There’s nothing you can say.”

Draco looked like he was about to leave again – so Snape pulled out his wand and cast a locking spell upon the door.

The blond stared at the door for a moment; then turned, eyes flashing.

“I knew it – I knew you were lying to me again!” he spat. “I knew Severus Snape would never have lost his magic. What is this, then? A plot to humiliate Potter?”

“No,” Snape growled. “It is… far more complicated.”

“Potter doesn’t know you can do magic. Hence this charade – am I right?”

Snape nodded, silently.

“So you’re just moving in to make cosy with Potter because?”

“I fucked Potter last year,” Snape said, flatly. “Or it might have been early this year. Winter. I can’t remember.”

“You… fucked him?” Draco went pale. “While we were in school?”

“Potter had left, if you remember,” Snape muttered, morosely.

A strange pallor whitened Draco’s face. Lips pinched, eyes bright, he fumbled his wand out of his coat pocket. As he Apparated away, the look in his eyes was one of betrayal and distress, leaving Snape with an uneasy feeling, as though he had been somehow unfaithful.

* * * * *

“How did you get all this here?” Potter asked, dishevelled, sweaty – and lovely.

Standing in the doorway to his own house, looking thoroughly lost.

“Magic,” Snape said, crossly. The incident with Draco earlier had left him even grumpier than usual, and the sight of gorgeous, unobtainable Potter just made him feel raw.

“I thought -” Potter began, glancing around at the laboratory that used to be his kitchen.

“Did you,” Snape sneered, not looking up from his notes.

“I don’t understand,” Potter muttered, looking weary. “Did… did you lie to me, yesterday?”

Snape looked up, half ready to agree and end this farce.

But Potter looked so wounded that he sighed, and flung down his quill.

“Draco Malfoy,” he said, by way of explanation.

Potter scowled.

“What about him?”

“He was here. With my things. More purchases, to help us.”

“He knows where I live?”

“I had to ask someone. So does Miss Granger. She’ll be here at seven.”

“Shit,” Potter said, sitting down heavily on one of Snape’s empty boxes.

* * * * *

“I am trying to cure him!” Snape snapped, for about the eighth time.

Hermione Granger threw him a suspicious glance. Snape gritted his teeth.

“I see no evidence of that,” she muttered. Snape threw a hand in impatience towards his makeshift laboratory, to which she replied, “That’s just for your illness, isn’t it?”

When Potter finally threw up his hands and stormed off outside, Granger seized Snape by the elbow so hard that her fingernails dug through the cloth and into his skin.

“It is impossible to make potions without magic,” she hissed, frizzy hair standing on end.

“I am aware of that,” Snape snapped, wrenching his arm free. “I said my magic is depleted, not gone. Potter’s is gone.”

“If he’s lost his magic because he brought you back from the dead, I swear Snape -”

“What?” Snape sneered, nastily. “You’ll bump me off again to see if that sorts it out?”

Some malicious emotion flashed across Granger’s face. Then she sighed, and sagged.

“We saw you two. That night in the forest.”

Snape sneered at her.

“We need to know what you want with Harry.”

“We are not having intercourse, if that is what concerns you,” Snape snorted.

He could not deny, however, that he still wanted to. But Potter never gave him even the slightest indication that he remembered their previous… coupling.

* * * * *

Three cauldrons bubbled peaceably over Potter’s stove. Snape, nose buried in a book, hobbled over and stirred the potions. One was his restorative draught, which stopped his muscles seizing up, throat closing in and eyes glazing over.

The other two were their supposed ‘cures’. Snape was in the process of a diagnostic potion for Potter - and a mild skin lotion for himself. If he was going to make a fake cure for himself, he might as well make something useful. Potter would never notice.

Potter buttered bread, distracted by his own book. Then he snapped it shut and dropped it onto the table.

“Useless,” he grumbled.

“Kindly do not bang that about,” Snape growled. “That book is ten times older than you.”

“Ten times more boring, as well,” Potter said.

“I severely doubt that,” Snape muttered, turning a page as he seated himself again.

“What?” Potter snapped. He slammed Snape’s bread and butter down in front of him, snatching another book from the pile. “Have you had your medicine yet?” he asked, face a picture of concern.

Snape clenched his fist. He had been living in Potter’s lonely hovel for three days now, and it was already starting to grate. Potter seemed to have cottoned on to the fact that Snape got infinitely more unpleasant when he hadn’t taken his restorative potions. Therefore, any cross word from Snape’s mouth was greeted with the same condescending: “Have you taken your potions yet?”

“Sanctimonious little prick,” Snape muttered. “Done any magic recently?”

Potter’s face went puce with anger and he stormed off. Snape went back to stirring his potion.

“Come and put your lips around this,” he said, smirking nastily as he picked up a teacup and ladled a measure of diagnostic draught into it.

Potter looked flustered by the innuendo. Poor little thing.

“What does it do?” he asked, blowing on it obscenely a few times then gulping the lot.

“Makes your balls fall off,” Snape said, poker-faced.

Potter almost dropped his cup. Then he smirked.

“Haha.”

“It tells me whether there are any illnesses or curses lingering on your person,” Snape sighed. Then he looked at Potter expectantly.

“What? Am I supposed to go blue or something?” Potter shifted anxiously from foot to foot.

Snape briefly considered adding a magical colorant to Potter’s morning tea. How would the little twit explain being blue to the people at Tesco?

He waited a little longer, but Potter remained irritatingly normal.

“According to this potion,” Snape sniffed, “you are putting it on.”

“Bollocks to your potion, then,” Potter said, a storm settling across his earnest young face.

“It does, however,” Snape ground out, “tell us that you are not unwell through any normal means. You are not cursed.”

“Well, that’s a start, I suppose,” Potter sighed. “What’s next?”

“Magical enhancement,” Snape said. When Potter looked concerned, Snape rolled his eyes. “To enhance any dormant magic, Potter, not your -”

“Yeah, fine, I didn’t actually think you meant that,” Potter snapped (but he looked rather disappointed, if Snape was any judge).

* * * * *

That evening, when Potter’s first potion was simmering towards its final stage, Snape realised he had a problem.

Magical enhancement potion and skin lotion did not look a bit alike. For starters, one was white and one was red. Potter would never fall for it.

“Your dose is different,” Potter frowned, peering at the beaker in Snape’s hand. “How can it be so different? Can you even drink that? It looks awfully thick.”

Snape eyed him, crossly, mind working frantically to keep himself from having to drink skin lotion.

“My magical signature is different from yours – one solution will not fit all,” he snapped. “Just drink, and cease asking pointless questions.”

Potter scowled, but drank, and Snape breathed a sigh of relief.

Lesson learned. Tomorrow he would make something white for himself as well. White, and edible. A calcium supplement might do the trick.

* * * * *

Potter, however, was not so easily fooled.

“Yours smells different to mine,” he said, on Day Two, clutching his own beaker mistrustfully. “They look the same, but yours smells like -”

“Would you like some of my restorative potion too, Potter? Might as well, seeing as you are so determined we must be the same in all things.”

“No thanks, I just -”

“Keep your mouth shut then. But swallow that first.”

* * * * *

There were many things they did not discuss. Dumbledore’s death. That night in the forest. What happened to Potter after he left Snape in the Shrieking Shack. Potter’s supposed resurrection abilities.

Potter went to work, Snape made potions. Potter came home and drank the potions, then Snape made more. Potter went to bed, Snape read – and made more potions.

Potter’s health did not improve.

“Maybe there’s just nothing left to, er, enhance,” Potter said gravely, a week later.

He was putting away their food shopping, still wearing his lime green care-work uniform and reeking of other people’s bodily fluids.

Snape thought him beautiful.

“Maybe I am actually a Squib. Would these potions make any difference if I was a Squib?”

“No,” Snape said, curtly. “Having a bath might, however.”

“Why?” Potter asked, glancing down at himself. He looked a curious mixture of very young and wearily mature.

“You smell bad,” Snape said simply, then turned away before Potter could notice how aroused he was.

Potter, however, just looked ashamed.

Snape felt bad as he discreetly watched Potter’s reflection in the kettle begin to strip.

* * * * *

Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger sat opposite Snape at the dinner table. Snape had not invited them; had been looking forward to another night of trying to taunt Potter into taking his clothes off. As it was, Potter was decidedly dressed.

Snape was in a bad mood.

Granger and Weasley were obviously uncomfortable because they had apparently seen Snape buggering Potter in the forest.

Snape decided to give them something to squirm about. Fortunately, Potter made it only too easy.

“That’s a hard one,” Potter said (about what, Snape had no idea).

“That’s just what you said last night. Darling,” Snape smirked.

“You what?” Potter turned red as Ron spat his food out across the table.

“Merely dwelling on happy memories,” Snape said, helping himself smugly to more potatoes.

Granger managed to demurely hide her choking behind a napkin.

“He’s making it up,” Potter spluttered. “We haven’t… You know… Well, not since that time in the -”

“I think it’s very unfair of you to try to humiliate Harry that way in front of his friends,” Granger said, suddenly.

That wiped the smirk off Snape’s face.

“What?” he scowled.

“You think we’re so immature we’ll be embarrassed by a few knob gags, and probably leave. Well, we’re not, are we Ron?”

“Not a bit of it!” Weasley choked out, eyes huge and his face red and sweaty.

“I think you should apologise to Harry right now,” Granger continued.

Snape felt he might explode with indignation.

“’Mione,” Weasley hissed, “don’t go too far now.”

“I’m not!” she snapped. “I’m sticking up for Harry. We’re his guests, your guests too, Professor, I suppose – and you are going out of your way to make us and him uncomfortable.”

“So really we all need an apology!” Weasley added, grinning.

“Over my dead body,” Snape said, nastily.

“Drop it,” Potter said, suddenly. He pushed back his chair and, slightly slouched over, began picking up the plates.

“We’re still eating, Harry,” Granger whispered, laying a soothing hand on Harry’s wrist.

“Oh,” Potter said, very quietly, eyes swimming. He was blinking very rapidly.

He put Weasley’s plate back down before Granger, Granger’s before Snape, then wandered away into the kitchen, still clutching the salad bowl.

As Weasley switched their plates back, Granger glared accusingly at Snape, who carried on eating.

From the kitchen, there came a crashing sound.

“Shi-it,” Potter said.

Snape set down his fork as both the others made to rise.

“I’ll go,” he said, quietly.

* * * * *

He found Potter mucking about on the floor, a mixture of china and blood in his palms, and the tracks of tears on his cheeks.

Snape briskly righted Potter, then set his hands under warm water whilst he looked for a bandage.

“Why do you keep with all the sexual stuff all the time?” Potter whispered. “Are you trying to make me feel bad that we did it?”

“It’s not all the time,” Snape snapped, feeling suddenly guilty. “And this is the first time I have heard you even refer to – what we did – having occurred at all.”

“Of course it happened,” Potter said. “I just… don’t know what to make of it.”

“Here was I thinking that… doing *that* with a person, was a statement of intent,” Snape groused. “Evidently not.”

“You’re cross because we’ve not done it since?” Potter gasped. “You… want to?”

Snape shrugged. Bandaging Potter’s hands (he had to keep reminding himself that a single healing spell would give himself away) gave him an excuse not to look at Potter’s face.

“I’ll not hold you to something you did in a moment of emotional turmoil, Potter,” he growled. “What we did… had obviously never occurred to you before that time.”

“Well, no,” Potter admitted.

Even though he had suspected this, and should not have fished for the answer, it still stung. He bandaged Potter’s hand rather tightly and said nothing.

“Is – that – why you came to see me?” Potter continued. “Because you thought we were in a rela -”

“Don’t start,” Snape snapped, tying off Potter’s bandage. “And no, I did not think that.”

But he had, for a time. Had lain in his sick bed, ill and alone and waiting for Potter to come and attend to him.

Potter never came. Obviously he felt nothing.

Yet, still Snape stayed. Besotted old fool.

* * * * *

Potter came home the next evening with a plastic bag full of cream cakes. They throw out dozens every night, he had said. Snape, who despised cream, sat on the sofa and watched Potter demolish every last one, then whinge that he felt sick.

Had Potter smeared the cream all over himself and sprawled nude across the couch, however, Snape might have been tempted to join in.

But Potter didn’t.

“So glad you find your work rewarding,” Snape drawled, as Potter lay on his side, groaning and clutching his stomach.

“I bloody hate it,” Potter grumbled. “Was enjoying being an Auror. Got, what, six weeks into the training and my magic had all gone. Fucking hate my life.”

“There, there,” Snape said, rolling his eyes.

“I didn’t even think about what would come after, did you? Once I knew I was going to die, I just shut down, wasn’t interested. Now I have to summon up all this enthusiasm again, to go out and do things. When you’ve made your peace with dying, it’s hard.”

“Poor Potter,” Snape murmured, “so difficult to be alive. Lupin and Black must be so thankful they didn’t have to deal with anything so trying.”

“Fuck you, Snape,” Potter said, then was sick all over the carpet.

If only, Snape thought, holding Potter’s hair away from his pallid face.

* * * * *

“You didn’t finish it all.”

“I do not need to.”

“Then why do I?”

“Are you questioning me again?”

“Yes,” Potter snarled.

Snape imagined ejaculating into Potter’s potion. It was white, and smelled pungently of oranges – Potter would never know.

* * * * *

Despite Potter’s mildly suspicious looks, and Snape almost poisoning himself on that first morning by pretending to drink skin lotion, Snape’s own potions were improving his health at a dramatic rate.

He spent the remaining money, now that he had all his equipment, on rare ingredients to experiment with – no doubt Potter would get him some more money should Snape run out.

He did not feel any guilt as he sent off a two hundred galleon bag for a small box of powdered Harpy finger bones. It was a legitimate purchase. A luxury, admittedly, and not something he could afford to add to a potion regularly. Perhaps he could create something as an extra – a booster potion, to be kept for special occasions… Such as if Potter ever deigned to ask him into his bed again…

Snape glanced over at Potter. The boy was sat on the window seat, knees huddled against his chest.

He was so achingly beautiful that Snape almost forgot how many stirs he had made in his potion (almost).

“Stop pining for lost things, Potter,” Snape snapped.

“How do you… You’re still the same, just… without your magic,” Potter whispered, suddenly.

“Yes,” Snape said, impatiently. “I am not my ability to make things move using a pointy stick.”

Potter actually smiled at him.

“Nor am I,” he said, cautiously.

Snape nodded, and turned back to his potion.

* * * * *

One evening, Albus brought them home a treat.

The baby bird was soft, downy, pale blue…

And very, very dead.

Potter stared at it, eyes almost bulging out of his head.

“It’s the first dead thing I’ve seen, since…” Potter glanced at him anxiously, and Snape shivered, aware of how Potter was mentally ending that sentence.

“It’s known as Necromancy,” Snape said, cautious lest Potter get upset – but Potter nodded, mildly.

“I’m guessing it’s an Unforgivable,” Potter ventured, eyes down.

“There are no such laws - I can find no reported case of it even occurring. If it did, it was kept a secret; a lost Dark Art. Who else knows about… myself?”

“Ron and Hermione,” Harry whispered, to which Snape mentally added ‘Of course.’ “They were dead against it.”

“I would have been, also,” Snape snapped – then froze as Potter turned on him, eyes wild.

“You… would? You think I ought not to have done it?”

“Of course,” Snape said, honestly. “If I was genuinely dead, then it was my time.”

“You’re bitter about it?”

Snape took a moment to consider his ‘new’ life – unemployed, ostracised, squatting in the home of a crippled former student and one-time lover, in physical agony and dependent upon potions for survival, pretending to be a Squib, taunted every day by the beautiful body of said former lover who obviously had no interest in him whatsoever –

“Did you expected gratitude?”

Potter stalled.

“I didn’t even think about it, really. I just knew that you were dead, and that was… bad.”

Despite himself, Snape’s heart warmed, just a little. A flicker of a flame. He stamped it down.

* * * * *

Accidentally sprinkling powdered Harpy bone over one’s stomach ought not to bring up… this.

Snape, sweating over three cauldrons, cursed as he looked down at himself – to behold a strange red glow emanating from his navel.

Had he been a woman, he would automatically have assumed pregnancy. Snape snorted – then squinted crossly at the Harpy bone packet.

‘To reveal the curious,’ said the label. Snape’s mind began to whirl. He had been searching for the source of his symptoms for weeks – perhaps the venomous curse that inflicted him began in this region?

Snape took a pinch of bone and sprinkled it again. A red string, like an umbilical cord, snaked from his navel and out into nothing. Did it represent the draining of his body’s energy – was this his sickness? Fascinated, hopeful, Snape turned off the heat under his latest fake batch of ‘cure’ and began again with a proper potion.

* * * * *

“Do you still have the Elder Wand?” Snape asked. He was resting on Potter’s reclaimed old sofa after a long, draining afternoon of fruitless experimenting. The ache behind his eyes told him he had been going for too long.

Potter was disgustingly attentive. It made Snape feel even worse – the pull to grab Potter’s hand and press a grateful kiss against it was almost unbearable.

“No, I buried it again, after I tried it out to see whether it would work for me when my other wand stopped,” Potter said, ladling soup into a bowl. He served Snape his dinner on a tray (thick soup, soft white rolls, rich butter, a tiny glass of wine) and sat cross-legged on the floor at Snape’s elbow.

So as to be on hand. Snape could not decide whether to be humiliated – or delighted.

“You aren’t my personal slave, Potter,” he hissed, but it came out too harshly, and Potter recoiled a little.

“Sorry,” the boy whispered, eyes downcast.

Snape could have bitten his own tongue off.

He had always had this ability, since childhood, to turn everything he touched to shit. His friendship with Potter’s mother was a prime example. Perhaps, Snape reflected sadly, he was made to love from afar. Potter’s mother he had adored with quiet, sisterly admiration, never reciprocated or appreciated. Potter, however, he felt a fierce passion for; every time Potter touched him, it felt like a brand. Snape’s skin burned.

Again, his feelings were never reciprocated (apart from one night of bliss in the Forest of Dean, which Potter then swiftly forgot about), nor appreciated.

“Get me some more wine,” Snape croaked out.

Potter looked doubtful.

“Not with your potions, they don’t go.”

“Don’t presume to tell me how to mix wine and potions, Potter!” Snape snapped.

“Don’t presume to order me about like a servant!” Potter snapped back.

“You put me in this position,” Snape sneered. “I’d be whole if it weren’t for you!”

“You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me!” Potter sniped.

“If I hadn’t fucked you, the Dark Lord wouldn’t have tried to end my life in the first place!”

Potter sucked in a breath. Snape had mentioned the Unmentionable Event.

“Bet you he would,” Potter grumbled.

“Don’t change the subject!” Snape thundered.

“Away from what?” Potter was trying to brazen it out. Idiot.

“Away from fucking!” Snape smirked, sneering nastily. “I fucked you!”

“I remember!” Potter shouted, scrambling up.

“Do you? Because the way you have acted since -”

“I said I remember!” Potter cried, fists clenched in anger. “What do you want me to do about it? I can’t take it back!”

“I don’t want you to t -” realising he was veering into dangerous territory, Snape tried to stand. The only effect this had was to cause him to stumble, and Potter to dash over, all concern; he was practically writhing into Snape’s arms –

So Snape kissed him.

Long, deep, and hard. His tongue in Potter’s mouth.

Potter squirmed in his arms, alternating between trying to push Snape off him and flinging his arms passionately about Snape’s neck, clinging on.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Potter whispered, lips red and full, as Snape pulled back triumphantly.

“Come to my room,” Snape murmured, against Potter’s mouth. “Let me show you -”

“No!” Potter wriggled like a fish to break free of Snape’s grip.

“Why not?” Snape growled, eyes heavy-lidded with lust.

“I… it’s just… Do you remember being dead, at all?” Potter whispered suddenly, surprising Snape.

“No,” Snape said, frowning. He did not. “I only have your word that I expired at all. Probably invented it,” he grumbled, pawing at Potter obscenely.

“I wish,” Potter sighed, his buttocks in Snape’s hands, allowing himself to be pulled closer. “So you don’t… remember being with me in the forest? When I was going to… meet Him? You… walked with me. All the way.”

Snape shook his head.

“Not in the least.”

“I… I used the Resurrection Stone to call my loved ones back from the dead, and you came. You stayed with me, right up until…” Potter bit his lip.

Sickened, Snape pulled away, anger blinding him momentarily.

“What?” Potter asked, blinking up at him owlishly.

“I see no reason to prolong this farce any longer,” Snape ground out, and stormed from the room, leaving Potter staring after him in confusion.

* * * * *

Slamming his bedroom door, Snape drew his wand to blast the furniture to pieces – then remembered and hurled it across the room with a growl. Muscles shrieking and joints popping, he picked up the wooden chair and smashed it against the wall – pain exploded up his back.

“What are you doing?” Potter called, from outside the door. He sounded anxious. So he bloody well should be.

“Bugger off!” Snape roared.

“What the fuck’s got into you today?” Potter shouted, pounding one fist upon the door.

“You dare tell me that – you dare!” Snape gasped.

“Tell you what?” Potter cried. Snape flung open the door.

“You – dare – tell me that you summoned me with a spell meant for lovers -”

“Loved ones,” Potter interrupted, paling.

“In the legend, he brought back his lover,” Snape said harshly, eyes flashing.

“Yeah, well, I brought back my dead parents, so I don’t think -”

“How dare you summon me back and still treat me this way -”

“What way?” Potter whispered, but his solemn face betrayed everything.

“Leaving me to rot in St Mungo’s, weeks on end of nothing – when you do want me!” Snape suddenly cried, triumphant.

“I was too scared to see you, therefore I am attracted to you?” Potter hissed.

“What was that night in the forest then,” Snape demanded (cursing himself inwardly for speaking of that which he had vowed to himself never to discuss), “when you begged me to put my hands on you? And how could you summon me if you did not care at all?”

“I thought I was going to die!” Potter cried feebly, face scarlet.

Snape lip curled. His heart shrivelled.

“I see,” he said, voice cold as the dead. To which he might happily have belonged, had it not been for Potter and his meddling.

“No, wait!” Potter floundered. “Please, it’s not like that!” He reached out to pluck at Snape’s sleeve as Snape passed, but Snape turned on him, eyes ablaze, and Potter shrank back, mumbling, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I do want to, please…”

Resolved to leave, Potter’s predicament be damned to hell, Snape strode to the door.

However, when he attempted to step outside, something strange happened.

A pulling, tight sensation in his abdomen, as though he were being restrained. He glanced back. Potter merely stood there, looking miserable.

Snape tried again to walk away, but he couldn’t.

“What are you about, Potter?” he demanded, nastily.

“Me?” Potter moaned, pitiable little wretch. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You must be,” Snape snapped, “for I cannot… leave you.”

Potter’s eyes became very round.

“You think… I’m doing magic? Somehow keeping you here – that’s great!”

“It most certainly isn’t,” Snape snarled. “Undo it at once!”

He struggled to pass the threshold, but the tugging feeling behind his navel tightened even further. It was almost in the same place as that strange red glow Snape had seen several days ag -

Snape hurried over to the cupboard, Potter following him all the way and babbling excitedly.

He seized the Harpy bone powder and upended the shaker over himself. There, pulsating at his stomach, was the red cord, stretching out and away from his body and disappearing.

“This is just brilliant,” Potter was saying, perched on the edge of the sofa now, hands tapping manic rhythms on his knees. Then his face fell. “Unless it’s some sort of magic whereby I can compel you to do things because I brought you back from the -”

“Oh shut up with all this dead nonsense,” Snape growled, sprinkling more of the powder over the disappearing cord, brow furrowed.

“Hey! I really did bring you back!” Potter remonstrated.

Snape took a step forward and sprinkled more powder into thin air. As he had suspected, a new piece of cord appeared on the end of that which was growing from his stomach. Revealed by the powder. Feeling like a child following a trail of breadcrumbs, Snape began to follow it.

* * * * *

The cord snaked several times across the room. As he upended the little bottle, the powder illuminated it, like a luminous artery. Even Potter fell silent.

“What is that?” the boy finally hissed.

“I don’t know, I thought it was my illness,” Snape gritted out, moving slowly, sprinkling carefully. All too soon, however, the cord made a loop and started heading for Potter.

As Snape began to approach, Potter looked like he might pass out. Snape said nothing until the cord was less than a foot from Potter’s belly.

“Hold still,” he said, gruffly, yanking up the hem of Potter’s jumper (Potter squeaked in surprise) and sprinkling powder over the exposed skin.

As he had feared, the red string disappeared into Potter’s stomach like an umbilical cord.

“We’re connected,” Potter whispered, hoarsely.

“Another by-product of your little Hallows experiment, I fear,” Snape hissed. “What else have you done to me?”

“I don’t know,” Potter said, dumbly. “I’m sorry. God, Snape -”

“This is ridiculous,” Snape snapped, “surely this red string isn’t preventing me from leaving.”

But when he reached the door and felt the familiar tugging, turning back only revealed Potter, standing up, an ashamed expression darkening his young face.

The scarlet cord between them had pulled taut.

* * * * *

“We… we should document this,” Potter was saying, prattling on again inanely. “There’s never been a case of this, we should write it all down -”

“Alright then, day twelve, bonded partner of arsehole gets thoroughly pissed off and murders him – ARE YOU TAKING NOTES?” Snape screamed.

Potter paled and sat down rather fast.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked, quietly. “We obviously can be apart, as I go to work… It must be an anger thing. You can’t leave me for… for good. Do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Snape growled. “When I get angry with you I get so turned on I can’t think straight.”

Potter’s squeak of surprise was worth the humiliating admission.

Snape watched a mixture of emotions play out across Potter’s earnest young face; shock, disgust, curiosity, until finally Potter stood up.

“That’s one thing I guess I can sort out,” he said, toeing his socks off.

“What?” Snape grumbled, morosely.

“I think I avoided you because I was too scared of you, after I… did what I did…” Potter said, removing his jumper. Snape’s face went hot. “But now I think I was an idiot to be so scared. We’re meant to… do this. I could bring you back from the dead *because* we do this. Let’s have sex again.”

And with that, he disappeared through the bedroom door, leaving his shirt on the carpet.

Snape stared after him, mouth agape, until his brain caught up with his body and he staggered after Potter.

* * * * *

Snape was rock hard from the moment he entered the bedroom, venomous illness be damned.

“I don’t know how long I can… last. Physical exertion is quite…” Snape said, upon entering. He glowered in frustration at the floor.

Potter was stood by the window, nude. He turned, smiling softly, and turned the bed sheets down, his own erection nodding, pink and heavy, between his legs.

“It’s ok,” Potter whispered. “I’ll look after you. I can ride you, like we did in the forest.”

* * * * *

Sex with Potter in a bed, as opposed to an icy river bank, was warm, damp, and enticing.

Potter pulled the sheets over them as they kissed and undressed, cocooning them in warmth. Snape’s long-aching body melted against Potter’s in delight.

He took Potter from behind again, kneeling behind him and watching the length of his cock slowly disappearing deep into Potter’s arse.

Potter, naked, spread out before him, moaned and quivered and let Snape spear him over and over.

His balls slapped against Potter’s; each thrust jolted Potter forward and made the boy cling to the headboard and whine softly. Potter’s hips were so thin, Snape almost wondered how his big blunt cock fitted inside the young man…

Then Potter turned to glance at him over one bare shoulder, lips red, damp and bitten and eyes bright with arousal.

Snape pulled Potter up by the hair so that he might kiss that crimson mouth. Potter knelt up, neck twisting, moaning how much he loved Snape’s cock, and Snape thrust his tongue deep inside Potter, holding him tight, both of them kneeling up in the bed, clinging to each other.

Snape tightened his grip on the young man. Potter wriggled against him, eyes just slits of emerald green. Snape watched Potter licking his lips hungrily, then sealed their mouths together.

When Potter pulled back, his cheeks were flushed and his tousled hair damp around his face. He wiggled even closer, burying his luscious face in Snape’s neck.

“I… I really… like this,” Potter gasped, into Snape’s skin.

Snape slid his hands down the arch of Potter’s back, over the damp bumps of the young man’s spine.

“As do... I…” Snape growled, thrusting inside Potter desperately.

“What can I possibly give you that you need?” Potter whispered, clinging to him like a lifeline.

Unable to articulate it fully, Snape gazed into those beautiful green eyes and murmured,

“This. Just this,” as he slid inside Pot – Harry – again.

* * * * *

Snape was being seduced by the curve of Potter’s shoulder.

Naked, curled up at Snape’s side, Potter lay with his face pillowed on his hand, his soft breath tickling Snape’s ribs.

Snape had an arm about him and was watching Potter’s bare shoulder rise and fall with the boy’s breathing.

Potter had got the afternoon off, and they had made love instead of eating. Now the sun was setting; washing the sky a pale, glowing pink, and the leaves on the trees a warm brown.

Potter’s skin looked almost golden.

His time with Potter was constantly on a knife edge – if Potter discovered his deception, there would be no more lazy afternoons in bed, no more warm skin, no more messy hair on Snape’s shoulder (and in between Snape’s legs). No more Potter clinging to him and nervously biting his lip and asking Snape if he didn’t mind that Potter couldn’t do magic; whether it showed in bed. Poor Potter.

Snape felt sickened with regret over his lies.

But he kept quiet.

Looking at down at Potter asleep in his arms, he was, after all, in heaven.

* * * * *

“Did you take your potion today?” Potter asked, in a singsong voice.

Snape peered at him over his stacks of parchments. Potter was naked, so it was rather distracting.

“Yes,” he snapped.

“All of it?” Potter asked, cheerily.

“Yes,” Snape said, gruffly.

“Then why, darling, did I see you upturning your glass over the pot plants this morning?” Potter asked, fists clenched.

Snape set down his quill. There was an awkward silence.

“My… magical enhancement potion isn’t working,” Snape said, solemnly. “I feel no good effects. I was sick of taking it, therefore I threw it away. It would hardly be good for morale if I were to tell you my own potion is failing me. Besides, I do not believe your own dose is unsuccessful.”

“Really?” Potter asked, frowning as he sat opposite Snape. “I don’t feel my dose has done anything much to speak of. Let’s test – how do we test?”

“Go and get your wand,” Snape instructed, his heart sinking.

Potter was making no improvement, despite Snape’s best efforts. He might as well be feeding the boy his calcium supplement.

Potter returned with his wand. Snape watched him warily from his seat as Potter approached.

How to treat this?

“What you are looking for is the hum of magic within you, rather than an actual product,” Snape said, cautiously.

Potter gripped his wand determinedly and was silent.

“There’s no hum,” he said, at last.

“Concentrate,” Snape snapped.

“I am concentrating! God!”

“Finished whining?”

Potter sighed. He gripped his wand again and closed his eyes.

Snape waited a long time before he silently flicked his fingers under the table.

He could see the boy almost light up as the warming charm hit.

“Oh!” Potter exclaimed, beaming. He opened his eyes. “I felt… Wow! Warm, you know?”

Snape placed both his hands on the table top innocently.

“Do you think I can do it again?”

“I wouldn’t try – once is enough to show the potions are working,” Snape shrugged.

Potter gave him a tongue-fucking kiss before he skipped off to put his wand away.

Snape, however, was disappointed. Potter had genuinely not shown any form of magic without Snape’s assistance. The potions were not working.

But why not?

* * * * *

“One day,” Potter said, breathlessly, on his back, legs in the air, “we’ll do this with magic. Must be lots of sex spells.”

Snape, knelt before him, gripping his ankles as he fucked him, paused.

Then he started again, pounding in hard.

“And when I can do magic, I’ll be an Auror again, and not have to go to Tesco,” Potter added. “And I won’t have to change adult nappies for a living – we’ll do all the housework with cleaning spells.”

“This is hardly the time,” Snape sneered, hair lank and face streaked with sweat, “to discuss housekeeping. Up.”

Potter lowered his legs and rolled over onto his front. Propping himself up on his elbows and knees, he waited until Snape had seated himself inside his arse again, and began to move.

“I’m so excited about it, though,” Potter said, between thrusts – Snape jolted him forward rather ruthlessly, balls smacking against Harry’s from behind. “I just know your potions are working. Perhaps we could put in a magical garden. We’re in a bit of a barren place really, if only I’d got that little house in the deep valley.”

“In. Deep. Yes,” Snape groaned, pushing his painfully stiff cock into Potter roughly and staying there for a moment.

“Mmm,” Potter said, pushing back to get Snape’s dick in even deeper. “We could plant all sorts of things.”

“Stop talking about plants,” Snape muttered, laying his chest over Potter’s back and nuzzling Potter’s damp hair as he fucked into him. “You shouldn’t be able to speak by now,” he whispered, licking a pink ear wetly. “I’m obviously not doing my job properly.”

“You’re looking forward to it too, right?” Potter asked, shoving himself onto Snape, his abused hole candy-pink and stretched. “All these things we’ll do?”

“We’re fine now,” Snape grunted, licking Potter’s upturned cheek.

“But, if we carried on like this, with no magic…”

“We’d be fine,” Snape repeated, spreading Potter’s legs further and trying a new tactic, whereby he kept his hips flush to Potter’s and ground them in circles, rather than rutting in and out.

Potter howled.

“You mean… you don’t mind me like this?” he gasped.

“I like you very much like this,” Snape growled into Potter’s ear. Pumping his hips, hard.

“Even without magic?” Potter asked, again, being jolted about like a rag doll.

“You aren’t your magic,” Snape snapped.

Potter wanted to do it face-to-face after that. Snape was almost assaulted with breathless kisses.

* * * * *

“I still can’t believe he moved in,” Snape heard Weasley mumble. “The ‘Prophet’ are making up some pretty wild stories since you disappeared, Harry – if only they knew the truth. Actually, they probably wouldn’t believe you.”

Snape had had enough. There was only so long a man could hide in his own bathroom. Curse Potter for not telling him that his little friends were coming over.

Standing tall, Snape strode out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel. Face pinched, he started across the room without acknowledging Potter’s guests.

As he passed, Weasley nudged Granger in what he apparently hoped was a discreet manner.

“Ouch, Professor, what happened to your back?” Granger blurted, as Snape passed.

“Hermione!” Weasley groaned.

Snape turned his head, slowly.

“Ask Potter,” he snapped. “And I am no longer a Professor.”

Then he was gone, brushing past Potter, who stood in the door with the tea tray.

“Harry, has Snape been attacked?” Granger persisted.

“What makes you think…” Potter trailed off as he set down the tray.

He glanced at Snape. His face went bright red.

“Well, he’s got these scratches all over his back, it just made me wonder,” Granger continued.

Weasley was scrutinising Potter’s face intently.

“Hermione,” he said, suddenly.

For a witch of her intelligence, Granger was painfully slow to take the hint.

“Are there people still out to get him – does he live in fear, Harry? Is that why he’s here?”

“Hermione, drop it,” Weasley said, louder.

“No I will not ‘drop it’, Ronald! If Harry and the Professor are in danger – is that why you left wizarding society, Harry? Are you being threatened?”

“They’re boffing again!” said Weasley, loudly. Then he turned green. “Um… are you?”

“Yes,” Potter said, shortly. “Excuse me.”

As he hurried out of the room, taking Snape by the arm and trying to drag him along too. Snape shrugged him off, angrily.

“Are you… alright?” Potter mumbled, glancing at the doorway to the sitting room.

“How so?” Snape smirked.

“Your… back,” Potter hissed. “Was I a bit… scratchy again?”

“Ah. I thought you were referring to the mortification at having to walk past your friends stark bollock naked!”

“You weren’t naked. You had a towel.”

“Barely! You could have warned me. I wouldn’t have gone into the bathroom naked to start with!”

“I didn’t know they were coming over!” Potter protested.

“Well, it was either walk past them like that or sit in the bathroom twiddling my thumbs all morning!”

“I’m not objecting to you walking about like that! Although they’ve guessed now. We’ve just started the… awkward conversation,” Potter said, sighing.

“Which you ran away from?”

“No! I just… I didn’t know what to… to say…”

“Well?” Snape raised an eyebrow, amused by Potter’s squirming.

“They’re going to ask if we… You know.”

“Fuck?”

“Oh, for… They’re going to ask if we’re in a relationship!” Potter snapped.

Snape’s insides clenched. Did Potter know how deeply Snape cared for him? How did Potter feel?

He could not risk humiliating himself again.

“They can ask until they’re blue in the face, then.”

“I know, I just… Are we?” Potter whispered, edging closer.

“Are we what?” Snape whispered back.

“I want us to be – oh, don’t be deliberately obtruse, Severus,” Potter thundered.

“The word is obtuse, you little idiot,” Snape scowled. “This is hardly the time to have this sort of discussion, Potter. I will not discuss… us… with your little friends listening outside the door!”

“They’re not listening, they wouldn’t do that!”

“We are listening,” Weasley called.

“I know,” Snape growled back. “Tell them to get knotted,” he said, loudly, and stormed into the bedroom.

Slamming the door behind him, he went instantly for his wand. Potter was ridiculously reliant upon those two idiots – if they tried to take him away, Snape was having none of it. He cast upon the wall and bent his ear to it. Magically amplified voices drifted through the plaster…

“Harry, you think this is healthy? You’ve chosen the man least likely of giving you a loving, stable relationship -”

“I’m happy,” Potter said, curtly. “I’m exploring – this is my first sexual relationship -”

“You mean to say you and he… Why can’t you see how disgusting it is, Harry?”

“Anal, or me and him?” Potter said, defiantly. “Anal’s great, by the way.”

“Please don’t tell me you let him do that to you, Harry!” Weasley sounded positively ill.

“Yup,” Potter said, obstinately. “It’s nice. I like it.”

“But he’s just using you, Harry!”

“Stop saying my name over and over, Ronald,” Potter snapped.

“Harry listen, we think we’ve worked out why you… and Snape… It’s part of your grieving process,” Granger ventured, nervously.

“My grieving process?” Potter repeated.

“Yes. You lost a lot of, um, older role models who you considered family. Snape was a prominent figure for you, and now he’s the last one of your parents’ generation who’s still alive, after you thought your connection with that time was severed completely…”

“So I’m boffing Snape in order to connect to my dead parents, to Remus and Sirius?” Potter demanded. Snape snorted.

“When he puts it like that, it does sound pretty barmy,” Weasley admitted.

“He understands, Ron,” Potter pleaded. “He’s going through the same thing I am – we might be connected because of that spell I did -”

“I knew that was a stupid idea,” Weasley muttered.

“Just because I wouldn’t do what you wanted and bring back Fred!” Potter yelled.

Snape’s eyes widened.

There was a crash, as though Weasley had just stood too fast, and overturned a chair.

“You know what I think, Potter! I think you’re bloody putting this on, in order that I won’t ask you to do the right thing! You’re too bloody scared to bring Fred back!”

“You can think what you like, Weasley!” Potter snarled. “Fact is I’m not your puppet – everybody knew Fred was dead, it was not the same!”

“So you brought back a man you always hated, except when you let him bugger you! Real good choice, Harry!”

“He cares about me.”

“Cares about you, bullshit! He’s on the make! He’s already taken your money and… and your virginity!”

“He’s ill! Ron, where is this going? I’m not making him leave, I can’t! We’re… connected. The spell that I used to bring him back… It’s joined us somehow!”

“So you could have been joined to Fred instead, that’d have been far nicer – although he wouldn’t have given it to you up the arse, so maybe -”

“Alright, out! I’ve had it with you!”

“Fine, I’ll go to the Ministry then, and tell them about your little resurrecting thing you did! They’ll force you to do it again!”

“They’ll lock me away!” Harry screamed.

“No they won’t, not when they see what it could do!”

“I can’t bring back Fred now, he’s probably rotten!” Harry shouted. There was a silence.

Then a door slammed.

The sound of Potter crying.

* * * * *

Snape brewed Potter a calming draught and sat with him on the window seat for the rest of the afternoon. Potter lay, his back to Snape’s chest, head draped back onto Snape’s shoulder and Snape’s arms about him, and cried brokenly.

“They wouldn’t make me do it,” he sniffed, turning to squint up at Snape with puffy eyes. “Would they?”

“No,” Snape said, although he really had no idea. All he knew was that nobody was going to take Potter from him.

“Do you think I was wrong to refuse to bring back Fred?” Potter asked him, for the eighth time.

“If, by doing so, you were advertising your ability to the world, then no,” Snape said, for the eighth time. “I would have refused also.”

“I feel awful about it,” Potter whispered. “But I couldn’t. It was the most horrible thing I have done – when you started to breathe again I was so freaked out -”

“Stop it,” Snape snapped, a chill shivering down his spine at the thought. Potter was silent for a moment.

“I do have to wonder whether I was genuinely dead,” Snape said, suddenly.

“I saw you in the forest,” Harry mumbled, unhappily.

“But you died, and you had memory of it,” Snape bit back, uneasily. “I died and remember… nothing.”

“You think you didn’t die because you didn’t see Dumbledore?”

Snape pursed his lips and said nothing.

“Perhaps then…” Snape said, after the silence had stretched on and Potter was almost asleep, “he did not wish to see me.”

* * * * *

He knew brewing at this late hour was foolish.

Snape bent low over his cauldron, breathing in fumes as he tried to smell his latest anti-venom potion.

He felt crabby and exhausted; the smoke was too hot on his face. It made his head swim. His eyes blurred for a moment; the ends of his hair dripped into the mixture…

“Shit,” Snape growled, as the potion turned pink around his long strands of hair. He drew his head back, lip curling in disgust.

Potion ruined.

“You ok?”

Snape turned, and felt a pang of guilt as Potter crossed to the stove, peering into the trio of potions.

One anti-venom, real.

One magic enhancer, real.

One… calcium supplement. Fake.

Potter looked up at him with such trusting eyes…

“Can I help you? You don’t look well – sit down, here,” Potter gently fussed Snape over to a chair, and he was seated in it before he knew what was happening. “What do I do next?” Potter asked, biting his lip as he picked up a ladle.

Another pang of guilt assaulted Snape and he covered his eyes with his hand. Weasley and Granger’s words buffeted at his mind.

“No good,” he growled, fist thumping the table in despair.

“What’s no good?” Potter asked, glancing into the potions. “This one looks a bit funny – oh! You’ve got it in your hair, let me get you a towel…”

Snape, head bowed, allowed Potter to gently tease the potion out of his hair with a towel that he couldn’t see. When he opened his eyes, Potter was kneeling before him, bright and lovely.

It was almost too much.

“I am no good to you,” Snape growled, lungs constricting.

“Calm down,” Potter murmured, smoothing his hands tenderly up Snape’s inner thighs in a way that was more comforting than sexual. “You’re wonderful to me. You need looking after – when was the last time you ate?”

“I can’t help you – the potions don’t work,” Snape gasped out.

“They do work,” Harry chided him, softly. “You’re looking better. I feel… Well, I feel a bit better. It’s more important that you make your anti-venom. I’m just grateful you’re trying to help me. To help us.”

“No good,” Snape shook his head fiercely, his vision swimming. “I’ll only hurt you.”

“What? You don’t hurt me, you’ve been… You’ve been my rock. When you hold me, I don’t feel like I’m lacking anything. I don’t feel that I… need magic to be me. I feel that doing things the Muggle way isn’t slower, isn’t – ” Harry trailed off. “We’re doing this together – we both know how it feels, and I feel like this is who I am, and that it’s ok, and that’s all… because of you. It’s not about potions.”

Snape couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Potter,” he mumbled.

“It’s ok,” Harry said, softly. “You’re not good with me spouting my feelings, I get that. Let’s just… Come to bed, ok? Let me take care of you.”

* * * * *

“HARRY JAMES POTTER?”

Snape awoke with a start. On top of him, Potter floundered like a fish in the dim light.

It was dark outside.

“We need a word!” called a voice, which was accompanied by heavy banging upon the front door.

Snape, his body protesting, stood.

He made for the spare bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Potter hissed.

Snape stood over the box in which he had stored his wand, debating with himself.

In the end, he removed it from the case and returned, wand in hand.

Potter’s eyes widened when he saw it.

“Answer the door,” Snape said, gravely.

“What’s that for?” Potter asked, frozen to the spot.

“I told you before, deterrent,” Snape spat.

Potter approached the door.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Auror Percevell, Mr Potter. We’ve had a report about you which we’d like to discuss. If you’d be so kind as to come quietly.”

“He actually told them,” Potter moaned, eyes drifting closed. “Come where?” he called.

“We need to take you to a safe location, due to the nature of the allegations.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Potter called back. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“We just need to establish that, Mr Potter. Then you’ll be free to go.”

“What am I supposed to have done?”

“We’ll tell you all that at the Ministry -”

“Tell me now!” Potter shouted.

There was a murmured discussion from outside, during which Potter glanced at Snape with wide, frightened eyes.

“Is Mr Snape in there, Mr Potter?” the voice eventually asked.

“What’s that to you?” Potter replied.

“We have reason to believe you… how shall I put it? Returned Mr Snape from a place he ought to have remained?”

Snape felt sick. He looked down at his once-dead hands.

“We know you are powerful, Mr Potter. That is why we’re asking you to come with us, quietly, now.”

“What can we do?” Potter hissed, turning to Snape weakly. “Throw teabags at them?”

He moved to open the door.

“Open it and then stand back,” Snape said, low.

The choice was plain. Either he did nothing, and Potter would be carted off to Azkaban. Or he fought back, kept Potter out of prison, and lost Potter’s trust.

He was used to making such choices – where every outcome was unbearable.

He raised his wand, grimly.

Potter stared at Snape’s wand.

“They’ll have that out of your hand in a second!” he hissed.

“Open the door and stand back,” Snape repeated. “On three. One, two, three -”

Potter pulled the door open. Three Aurors were revealed, standing in wand-light outside…

“PROTEGO!”

* * * * *

The little house shook as the spell flew towards the Aurors, blasting them backwards; thundering as it surged into the ground.

The Aurors went flying. Potter went flying. He collided with the bookcase and slid down it, blinking rapidly, half knocked out.

Snape moved as quickly as he could – he switched on the parlour’s electric light, then stood in its glow over the bodies of the three prone men, and set to work.

As he knelt over them, whispering charms, feeling the magic flowing through his veins again, the terrible weight of guilt lifted. He no longer had to pretend; he would face the consequences. By the time he had finished, the Aurors would each awake convinced they had spoken to Potter, who had given them clear evidence of his innocence.

Of course, by the time he had finished, Potter was standing behind him, with his arms folded.

Snape could not pretend any more.

It was over.

 

PART III

“WANT TO TELL ME WHAT JUST HAPPENED?” Harry cried, shaking with rage as he watched the man he had grown to trust quietly – and bloody fucking magically – modifying the memories of the men who had come to arrest him.

“How does Mr ‘I can’t do magic’ suddenly manage to make the EARTH FUCKING SHAKE with a hex so powerful -”

“I can do magic,” Snape said flatly, rising from the prone body of the last Auror. He held his wand almost defiantly. “I could always do magic.”

“I… What?” Harry choked out, his head spinning.

Snape looked at him rather sadly, as though he had known this moment was overdue for a long time.

Which it apparently was, the lying bastard.

“My potions – all those times you suspected – were all duds. My magic is as intact now as it ever was,” Snape said, low, looking at Harry intently. “But listen -”

“So you’ve been stringing me a line! Giving me fake potions and… and laughing at me behind my back -” Harry cried, trembling now, as Snape’s betrayal began to sink in.

“No,” Snape growled, eyes bright with pain and fists clenched. “Not you – yours were all real. I made – am making – my very best attempts at curing you -”

“I don’t believe you – why should I believe anything you say?” Harry snapped, turning away. “I thought you shared my pain, I thought you were really trying to heal us -”

“I am,” Snape whispered, and his voice cracked. “I am trying my very hardest to find something that will help you. My own situation is secondary to that.”

“But why did you lie about it?” Harry begged him. “Why tell me you couldn’t cast spells?”

“If you will remember, you turned me away, said it was the last time I would see you,” Snape said, softly.

“So it was a carrot to get me into your bed?” Harry asked, hands shaking. “You made it up so that I might come and roll over for you -”

“I wished to help you,” Snape replied, solemnly. “How could I leave you alone -”

“You lied to get sex. That’s all this is, really. God, you must have thought I was such a fool - not to notice your potions were fake!”

Snape paused.

“Had you been, ah, Draco Malfoy, for instance, I confess I should have had a harder time hiding them from you -”

“That stupid boy Potter who can’t tell gillyweed from… from… Yeah, I’ll choose him; he’d never guess, he can’t tell his elbow from his backside, really -” Harry gasped out.

“It was not like that,” Snape said, reaching for Harry entreatingly, thin face grave and pale. “I merely meant that I did not have to go to great lengths, not that I did not have to try. There were times when you nearly guessed, were there not?” he added, imploringly.

“You can’t make this better by reminding me I’m not completely stupid!” Harry shouted at him. “I can’t believe you lied to get me into bed, you’ve betrayed me, Severus! So completely -”

Snape’s face fell.

“I wish you would stop saying that this was all about sex,” he snapped, upper lip curling in obvious disgust.

“I will not stop mentioning it– especially if you will not admit to thinking more with your dick than your brain!”

“Fine,” Snape snarled, “Fuck wanting to help you recover – I desired you. I *do* desire you. I have been driven half mad by lust for you since you were sixteen.” Harry’s eyes widened. “I would have done anything to make you mine again after that night in the forest, even tell a few untruths -”

“Lies,” Harry spat, “they’re called lies, Severus.”

“Lies, fine,” Snape scowled. “I would have told any lie in order to stay with you that afternoon. Any lie in the world, and I admit it. But that does not change my genuine desire to help you, nor does it make my admiration for you any less ardent -”

“Ardent? Just… just go,” Harry said suddenly, sinking onto the dank grass. “I have nothing else to say to you.”

“You can’t expect me to leave you here -” Snape protested.

“I could never trust you again,” Harry declared, coldly. “What possible thing can you do – there’s no gesture you could make that might make me forgive you!”

“Perhaps just one,” Snape muttered.

He drew his wand – Harry felt sickened by the very sight of it.

For one moment, Harry thought Snape was going to propose to him. That was the only grand gesture he could think of – but how inappropriate it would be, now.

That did not stop his traitorous heart from hoping for it, however… But, no. He had been betrayed.

Instead, Snape drew his wand.

Then snapped it in half.

He let the pieces drop on Harry’s front doorstep.

Harry stared at him, mind-boggled.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he screeched.

“I do not need magic either,” Snape declared. “I give it up – now I genuinely cannot perform spells.”

“You stupid git, how are you going to make your restorative potions without magic?” Harry demanded.

Snape faltered.

“I shall owl the recipe to a brewer in Hogsmeade.”

“No-one else can make it as well as you! You’re an idiot!”

“Don’t call me an idiot!” Snape growled. “I have just offered the ultimate sacrifice a Wizard can make for you! I love you!”

“Well it’s too late, I don’t want it! It’s over! Whatever the fuck it was we had, it’s over,” Harry gritted out. He felt a stab of pain at watching Snape’s thin face twist in anguish. “And to think – I thought I loved you too,” he added.

He had intended to hurt Snape – he realised he had hit the mark when Snape covered his eyes with one hand, which trembled now.

“Do not tell me that now,” Snape hissed. “If you only knew how I have suffered these past weeks -”

“Good,” Harry spat, trembling also. “Now get lost.”

“I can’t leave,” Snape said, softly, both hands rising now to cover his thin face in his despair. “You bonded us!”

“Then I’ll fucking kill you!” Harry yelled, tearing up handfuls of grass and earth in his fists and hurling them at Snape.

A soft ‘pop’ sounded not too far off. They both turned.

A Ministry Official was walking toward them across the grass, face lit by the light of his own wand.

* * * * *

“Mr Potter? I have been requested to pay you a visit – we understand there was some trouble? You were made an erroneous visit?”

“The problem is over,” Snape growled. “They have been dealt with. The Aurors were here and they found nothing.”

“Ah, yes, we’ve been informed. Mr Malfoy was most adamant, however. Perhaps we need another word with him…”

“Malfoy!” Harry gasped. “How did he know anything?”

Snape stared crossly at the grass and refused to meet his eye.

“Of course, Mr Potter. Well we’re always on the lookout for ways to improve. If there’s anything else I can do for you, or your husband -”

“No, we’re – my what?” Harry froze.

The Official glanced frantically between the two of them.

At the look of shock mirrored on Snape’s face, the Official’s own face turned an ashen grey.

“Grab him!” Harry yelled, stumbling up.

Snape was quicker, however. His own wand lying in pieces on the floor, he flew at the Official and tackled him to the floor in the dark.

Harry had a moment to reflect, in spite of his anger, how beautiful and physical Snape was, as the Official’s wand sailed out of the poor man’s fingers and landed on the grass.

Harry tossed it to Snape. His own wand now trained on him, the Official slumped to his knees.

“Don’t kill me!” he cried. “I didn’t do it! It’s the biggest Ministry secret in decades – hardly anyone knows! I just happen to be on the team that dealt with it, please I beg you -”

“Dealt with it… how?” Harry asked, coldly.

“From the look on his face, we did not consent to this marriage,” Snape sneered, stepping forward and pressing the tip of the wand into the man’s cheek. “When was it done?”

“O-October! When you came in for your compensation review! I-I-Imperius!”

“Nobody can cast that on me,” Harry snorted, dismissively. “I’m impervious, everyone knows.”

“Can you still speak to snakes?” Snape asked him, suddenly.

Harry faltered. Gulped.

“Do you think that was another power I got from… from Him?” he whispered. “Oh, God…”

“This bonding of Mr Potter was something we – they – had considered, once we learned Mr Potter possessed all three Deathly Hallows!”

“How does that result in him being bonded to me?” Snape growled.

“Mr Potter had become too powerful! He was Master of all three Hallows! W-ways of reducing the amount of power Mr Potter had access to were, were discussed, for the public safety! It was decided that, if he could be bonded to another, one that required magic to sustain themselves, possibly one who was severely ill -”

Snape’s eyes widened. Harry shook his head, still confused.

“When you came in for your grant – saying how ill you were – it must have seemed like the perfect time! Mr Potter was only down the hall, in Auror training! We had no way of knowing that it would decrease Mr Potter’s power altogether, I - I swear!”

“How did you not know?” Snape demanded. “How can you not know how much it would take from him?”

“The spell transfers as much magic as is necessary! We did not know you would not survive without his magic!”

“W-what?” Harry whispered, turning to gaze into Snape’s pale face. “Y… you’re dying?”

“Not with your magic!” the Official piped up. “He has your magic and so… so he will live, as long as the bond remains!”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were that ill?” Harry asked, angrily.

Snape, however, had lowered the wand.

“I did not know,” he said, softly.

“So the bond between us can never be removed,” Harry added, as Snape dropped the Official’s wand wearily onto the grass.

“It can,” Snape snapped. “It can be removed and I shall… go away somewhere…”

“To die,” Harry scoffed. “Fat lot of good that’d be.”

“C-can I go now?” the Official whispered, prostrating himself at Harry’s feet. Harry resisted the urge to kick him.

“I think you’d better,” Snape said, darkly. “We will be filing a complaint in the morning.”

“Yes. Yes. Of, of course. T-thank you.”

The Official wasted no time in seizing his wand, and in the next moment he was gone.

“I am hoping,” Snape said, after a long silence which Harry was afraid to break first, “that you will at least let me back in for a cup of tea.”

“Of course,” Harry scowled. “Stupid bastard.”

Snape smiled a wry smile as he followed Harry back inside, and sat stiffly at the table whilst Harry poured boiling water in the sugar bowl and milk into the kettle.

Somehow, Harry managed to make them both cups of tea, for all his hands were shaking.

* * * * *

“Explains how I found you, that first morning,” Snape sighed. “It never occurred to me at the time – that I had just willed myself to you. Only bonded couples can do that.”

“I didn’t know you were so ill,” Harry said softly, watching Snape wrap both hands around his cup, cradle it in his palms, and stare into the dark swirling liquid.

“It is a pity,” Snape said, cryptically, not lifting his eyes from his drink.

“What do you mean, a pity?” Harry demanded. “I think that’s being a bit mild, don’t you?”

“What do you expect?” Snape snapped, glancing up at Harry reproachfully. “According to you, I died. I ought not to be here at all.”

“We’ll find some way to cure you -” Harry began.

“That desperate to free yourself, are you?” Snape observed, ruefully. He ignored Harry’s spluttered protestations and continued, sighing. “Perhaps ‘pity’ is not the right word. I was referring to the fact that it was a pity I would have to remove the bond and die, seeing as I was finally so happy with you. But I had forgotten our argument.”

“You don’t have to remove the bond – what makes you think I’d rather you died?” Harry demanded. He wanted to throw something at Snape.

“You will have your life back,” Snape said, at last. “No bond means… you can have your magic back.”

“But you’ll die,” Harry repeated, crossly. “I’d be an Auror again, and sort of extraordinary… but you’ll be dead.”

Snape set down his tea and rose, listless. He crossed to the window, staring out bleakly at the darkening landscape.

“Is that such a problem?” he hissed. “Every day you told me of how all you wanted was your magic back, so that you could have everything you’d dreamed of. Everything you deserve. I can’t deny you that; you know that I love you.”

Harry was silent for a long time.

“You lied to me,” he said, at last.

“I… did,” Snape whispered.

“You kept up your lie for a long time, too,” Harry added.

“I feel awful about it,” Snape said, so softly that Harry almost believed he’d imagined it.

“It’s not really like your lie did me a great deal of harm, though,” Harry shrugged, thoughtfully. “I mean, you were here when I felt so completely alone, you tried to help me – at the same time as lying to me, of course... You made love to me. Made me realise what a stupid arse I’d been to bring you back and then leave you to recover all alone. You helped me to cope without magic. Plus… I did this to you – I have a responsibility to you.”

“Never stay with me because of that,” Snape hissed, closing his eyes. “I would rather die than feel… that you remain by my side out of pity.”

“What sort of selfish bastard would I be if I asked you to sacrifice your life for my career aspirations?” Harry demanded.

“It’s not just your career, you stupid boy,” Snape growled. “Magic is – is – you!”

“But it isn’t,” Harry said, approaching Snape cautiously, as one might approach a wounded beast. “You showed me that. Magic isn’t all of who I am. I’m lots of other things first… One of which is your husband, apparently. And I can definitely be that without magic.”

“You would come to resent me, in time,” Snape croaked. “Knowing that it was my stupid life that kept you back from all the things you wanted -”

“If I can’t have you, I don’t really want any of the other things,” Harry whispered, laying his forehead on Snape’s back.

“We could, at least, get compensation for this,” Snape said, sadly. “An illegal bonding, can you imagine… If we don’t argue, the bond might let us live in separate places too, so that you don’t have to –”

“I love you, you silly old git.”

At first, he thought Snape was laughing. Then he realised that the shaking of the older man’s shoulders, combined with a few escaped, heartbroken sobs, meant something different.

Sliding his arms about his husband from behind, Harry held him, feeling the tremors that racked the taller body, as Snape fought to get himself back under control.

Snape’s eyes were red and over-bright by the time he turned, grabbing Harry roughly and tightening his arms about Harry’s thin waist. He laid his chin atop Harry’s messy head and stood there, sniffing occasionally, Harry’s face in his neck.

“This means I’ll always be just ordinary, though,” Harry added. “Work at Tesco, come home ratty-looking after stacking bean cans so they all face one way… Wouldn’t that be boring to you?”

“Never,” Snape sniffed.

“We need to get you a new wand,” Harry murmured, into Snape’s warm skin.

Snape sighed.

“I was willing to sacrifice it,” he said, softly. “If there was a way I could have survived without those potions, I would have done it. For your sake.”

“If I’d just had an aversion to magic, you’d really have lived like a Muggle just to please me? It feels like cutting out your brain,” Harry whispered.

“Better that than your heart,” Snape said, quietly.

Harry breathed him in and held him close.

 

-The End-

 

‘… When you took my hand in yours,  
And said the words that we all know,  
I saw us down the years, still hand in hand,  
Both pairs of eyes still aglow.  
On an ordinary day,  
We went to bed, and there we lay,  
You in my arms, and me in yours,  
For ever more.’

‘On an Ordinary Day’, Marcella and the Forget-Me-Knots  


  
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